A day in Boston

Pulling into South Station, Boston, I decide to check out the city's Institute of Contemporary Arts (ICA). I take the underground Silver Line, which turns out to be a bus. I feel a bit daft looking over the edge of the platform for the rails. I don't even know if there used to be trains, but it's mighty strange going through underground tunnels on a bus. On the way to the ICA, I'm wandering around the Fort Point Channel riverside district, the latest hangout for hipster types, when I stumble over a very strange looking bench, covered in yellow wool.

It turns out to be a Design Museum project called Street Seats and there are at least a dozen in the area. So I grab a coffee and decide to explore the benches strung out alongside the river. 

I'm back in smiling-to-myself mode, that happy feeling I get when something serendipitous happens. And I like nothing better than a little unexpected street art, particularly when you can sit on it.
Then I wander along the shore to the ICA, designed by Diller, Scofidio & Renfro. Built in 2006 it was Boston's first new museum in 100 years. The picture below is of the water-facing frontage and the little box dropped down contains the most remarkable chill-out area, where benches strewn with cushions face a window framing the harbour view.
There are more expansive views out to the water from the glass terrace on the top floor. When a building is this exciting the art inside tends to take a back seat.
This month's show is a street turned gallery artist from San Francisco who depicts the down and outs, the dispossessed and the homeless. It's challenging. 

In search of something a little more beautiful I catch the subway to the Museum of Fine Arts. The museum has put up Boston Strong banners. The slogan – on stickers, T-shirts and posters – is the city's defiant response to the Marathon bombings.

The museum has a new wing at the back with a cathedral like atrium created between the old and new buildings. The main eye catcher in the atrium is Dale Chihuly's lime-green glass tower. It's about 30 feet high, a great gaudy Christmas tree. He excels at statement pieces and is behind the massive chandelier in the entrance hall of London's Victoria & Albert Museum.

So I have some lunch in a leafy courtyard then tackle the Michelangelo drawings, a few mummies, Testino portraits of the Royals and a whole roomful of sublime John Singer Sergeants. I love this 11th-century Ganesh sculpture. How pleased he looks with himself, a wife adorning each thigh. Notice the little mouse at his feet, nibbling on a sweet that has fallen out of one wife's bowl.

Some pieces have made the most imaginative use of the new space created by the modern extension. I almost miss this falling man. 

I stay until they chuck us all out, then return to Auntie Jo's on the commuter train.