Tea at the Boston Public Library's MapRoom Cafe, and a Visit to Their Travel Poster Exhibit

A trip to Boston wouldn't be complete without a visit to my friend Michael at the Boston Public Library. We had tea and scones at the MapRoom Cafe, but a glance at the next room made me wish I was having high tea at their Courtyard restaurant. There is also a beautiful outdoor garden, where I'm told they schedule concerts.

If you search the internet, I guess the restaurant used to be called the Novel Cafe. I suspect (no, I'm pretty positive) that the operation is leased, and they must have changed operators in the last few years.

They usually have two exhibits running from their archives. I missed the postcard exhibit, "Greetings from Boston" at the new building, but I was lucky enough to catch "Away We Go", the vintage travel poster collection at the McKim (old) building. I love those stylized posters. Here are a few of my favorites.

A lovely outside banner. Imagine us doing something like this outside the store? How much do you think it would cost? Probably outside the budget, no?

Portugal. For some reason, I am reminded of the Sloane Crosley essay on visiting Lisbon in her new collection, How Did You Get this Number? I definitely wanted to visit half the places in the exhibit. I don't think I'll be going anywhere for the rest of the year, except for maybe another family weekend.

I included Tasmania for my niece Jocelyn. She studied there. Says it was quite beautiful.

Here's their upcoming event schedule. I'd get there early for the Jonathan Franzen. They are likely to fill up.

And Eric, you need to go to Boston to see the postcard exhibit, don't you think?