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Great Escapes

Where to find some peace and quiet in our crowded town

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et’s face it: It can be hard to escape the jackhammers, car horns, truck engines, and drunken crowd noise of our densely populated little town. Add to these the tourists, traffic, and frenetic kind of high-tech and financial-services jobs that dominate in Boston and you end up with a city that a University of Houston study found was America’s fastest paced. It gets worse: The average Boston driver spends 57 hours a year stuck in traffic and has to come up with a way to pay a cost of living that’s 38 percent higher than the national average. We need a break just from typing that. Good thing we have a list of places you can go to get away from it all:

1


A yoga studio that’s all about slowing down
 

2


A smart escape hidden on a famous campus
 

3


Hot yoga at a healthy price
 

4


The most relaxing kind of meditation: the free kind
 

5


Where to find some peace among the bustle of the Pru
 

6


A (very) quiet place to see Rembrandts, Picassos, and other museum-quality art for free
 

7


A quiet nook for the relaxing and exotic art of smoking hookah
 

8


A retro ice-cream shop whose back lounge features classic wingback chairs and couches to relax in
 

9


The biggest, most peaceful park you’ve probably never been to
 

10


A hidden oasis in the heart of JP—and it’s not the one you think
 

11


A hidden garden in the midst of crowded Beacon Hill
 

12


Creative coffee, tea, and peace and quiet
 

13


Getting inside America’s largest private library—and one of its greatest art collections
 

14


A full-service yoga studio in a peaceful ‘burb
 

15


secret suburban spiritual retreat with yoga classes
 

16


Mellow yoga in a suburban backyard
 

17


A bakery that’s also a relaxing place to unwind
 

18


A quiet, cerebral oasis in the heart of Copley Square