Although our July 4^th weekend Boston trip was intended primarily to visit friends and reacquaint ourselves with a “real” Fourth of July celebration, we also took the time, as in all our trips to the city, to reacquaint ourselves with some of the areas we most enjoyed. High on our list was the Fenway.

Although this trip did not include a visit to the Fenway’s most famous and popular residents—the Red Sox (who were playing out of town)—we visited a number of others including John Singer Sargent, Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and a younger temporary (not to speak of contemporary) resident, Dale Chihuly.

Boston Museum of Fine Art (MFA)

Virtually every trip back to Boston for us necessitates a stop at the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA for locals). The stop was particularly important on this trip. First, it was our first time back since the opening of the wonderful new Art of the Americas Wing. Second, we just so happened to arrive (what a coincidence!) during the museum’s big new Dale Chihuly exhibit.

Yes, after three Chihuly stops (St. Petersburg, Seattle and Tacoma) over the last month, not to speak of a big 2008 Chihuly exhibition at San Francisco’s DeYoung Museum, we still haven’t had enough.

Chihuly or Bust

The Chihuly show, as always, met our expectations. As with our blog on the July 4^th celebration, we will let pictures of the exhibition tell the story. Following are examples of some of his spires, persians, seaforms, ikebana, floats, chandeliers and fiori, both alone and arranged on walls and in ceilings and boats.

And our favorite of all his designs, the graceful, ethereal baskets.

The New MFA—and the Old

So too did the new wing (although it did take us a while to reorient ourselves to the new geographical organization of the museum). The new wing is a beautiful display space and allows for a much bigger display than the old museum.

Unfortunately, the museum’s modern (from 1970 on) section was not yet open. A number of our favorite pieces were not currently available for viewing. But we did have a chance, albeit brief, to reacquaint ourselves with some of our old Impressionist friends, including Monet, Van Gogh, Renoir, and Rodin.

But, since we were already in the neighborhood, we decided to stop in at a smaller Boston museum jewel—the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

This small museum, which is also undergoing a big renovation, is certainly a jewel, featuring the private collection of one of the city’s greatest and most generous art doyennes.

Although her collection, which consists largely of medieval, renaissance, and religious art aren’t exactly our taste, we do enjoy much of the Asian, mosaic and 19th-century European and American art. But whether or not you are attracted to the themes of the collection, it is worth the price of admission to enter the courtyard of the 15th-century Venetian palace-like structure alone.

A Stroll through the Fenway

The MFA and Gardner museums are both located around the Back Bay Fens, an urban oasis in the Fenway area of Back Bay. Although the Fenway is certainly best known and most widely visited for “its park” (Fenway Park), famed landscape architect Frederick Law Olmstead designed it as part of his “Emerald Necklace, a belt of green nature that is laced around and through the city.

Although a stroll through this urban oasis is worth a detour on its own, it just happens to be right on the way between the museums and the Back Bay. It is also home to the Victory Gardens, one of only two remaining gardens established through the U.S. during World War II. Although some of the privately farmed plots are still dedicated to their original purpose of growing vegetables, most are now dedicated to flowers. While actual entry into these beautiful plots is limited to those who actually farm them, all are open for viewing and enjoyment by everyone.