I use to walk by the Isabella Stuart Gardner museum a couple times every day on the way to class and back. I think it was 2 months before I realized it was a museum. It looks like a typical student housing apartment building, converted from a private house. It's only a couple blocks along Ruggles St and The Fenway from Huntington Ave, where one of the main trolly/subway lines runs.
Also a few blocks down Huntington, toward the Northeastern U. and Copley Square in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. MUST SEE. They have an Egyptian collection(mummies,jewelry,pottery) and an Oriental collection(fabrics,screens,scrolls,netsuke) that'll knock your socks off. I know you'll love the fabrics.
Boston Common and the Public Gardens next door, by the State House on Beacon Hill is worth a look see. They built a parking garage under the Common by tunneling so they wouldn't tear it up. When it was all done somebody said, "Hey, what happened to all the dirt?". Seems the contractor sold it to landscapers for about half a bazillion bucks. He was clean because nobody had thought of it as anything but an impediment.
I haven't lived there since the 60s, so I can't be much help with where to stay/how to get around, but Boston is a pretty cool place. Even "way back when", between all the colleges, universities, business/technical schools and nursing schools, there was well over 100k students. I think Boston U. has 50k alone, now.
Oh, if it's still there, on the second floor over a fish warehouse, next to Faneuiel Hall, is/was a resturant called Durgin Park. Long tables with checkered cloths, water pitcher at the end of the table (Hey, pass the water), sit next to whoever (paupers and princes), waitresses that hustle ( Look out, comin' through, hot stuff), sawdust floor and great food.
