AAA FALL 2017 WORLDWISE Route 66 Revival p. 32 Dressing for Access p. 38 South Africa: A Tale of Two Cities p. 48 TWO OF A KIND: THE ORIGINAL COLLEGE TOWNS Cambridge MASSACHUSETTS Just north of Boston and home to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, this city oozes intellectualism and college spirit. COURTESY OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY HARVARD OF COURTESY Harvard and the Charles River STAY SEE When celebs come to Harvard, they’re put up at Harvard University’s three venerable art the AAA Four Diamond Charles Hotel. Just museums were brought under one roof in minutes from Harvard Yard, The Charles has a 2014 and collectively dubbed the Harvard well-stocked in-house library and one of the best Art Museums. Their collections include some breakfasts in town at Henrietta’s Table. The 250,000 art works dating from ancient times to 31-room luxury Hotel Veritas—described by the present and spanning the globe. The MIT a GQ magazine review as “a classic Victorian Museum, not surprisingly, focuses on science and mansion that went to Art Deco finishing technology. It includes the Polaroid Historical school”—boasts 24-hour concierge service Collection of cameras and photographs, the COURTESY OF HOTEL VERITAS HOTEL OF COURTESY and a location in Harvard Square. Those who MIT Robotics Collection and the world’s Hotel Veritas prefer to bed down near the Massachusetts most comprehensive holography collection. Institute of Technology (MIT) should check in Beyond the universities, visit the Longfellow at The Kendall Hotel, which brings boutique House–Washington’s Headquarters, the accommodations to a converted 19th-century preserved, furnished home of 19th-century poet firehouse. Halfway between the two esteemed Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, which served universities, Harding House is an intimate bed- briefly as Washington’s headquarters during the and-breakfast in an 1867 house with period- Revolutionary War. It’s open Memorial Day appropriate décor. through late October. EAT DO The hipster crowd can be found dining on global Harvard University offers official tours tailored tapas at trendy Little Donkey, a restaurant to curious tourists. For an unofficial and perhaps helmed by James Beard Award-winning Chefs COURTESY OF CHARLES RIVER CANOE & KAYAK & CANOE RIVER CHARLES OF COURTESY more revealing look at the esteemed institution, Kayaking on the Charles River Ken Oringer and Jamie Bissonnette. Beat sign on for The Hahvahd Tour by Trademark Brassierie looks and feels like a jazz club; you’ll Tours. If the sight of crew teams plying the find live music there most days, and you’ll also Charles River entices you, sign up for a skyline dine on fresh seasonal selections from a menu by or sunset trip with Charles River Canoe and Chopped winner Rebecca Newell. A distinguished Kayak. You can get the same great views of professor in a blazer with leather-patched elbows Boston and Cambridge—and let someone would feel right at home at PARK, where the else do the work—on a sightseeing tour with menu consists of reinvented classics and the the Charles Riverboat Company. Both boat distinctive dining areas have a residential feel. companies operate mid-May through early If you want to hang with the college kids, the October. The Harvard student troupeHasty place to be is Roxy’s Grilled Cheese/A4cade in Pudding Theatricals is the third-oldest theater Central Square. Join the crowd in the back room, organization in the world. You can catch one of a retro arcade complete with ’80s soundtracks its performances on campus in February. Find PHOTO BY KYLE KLEIN/CAMBRIDGE OFFICE OF TOURISM OF OFFICE KLEIN/CAMBRIDGE KYLE BY PHOTO and the full complement of pinball, Skee-Ball, out about other events at Harvard, MIT and Hasty Pudding Theatricals foosball, shuffleboard and a pool table. around the city at cambridgeusa.org. 12 AAA Traveler Worldwise Fall 2017 Cambridge ENGLAND Home to the esteemed University of Cambridge, founded in 1209, this city on the River Cam is less than an hour’s train ride northeast of London and COURTESY OF VISIT CAMBRIDGE AND BEYOND AND CAMBRIDGE VISIT OF COURTESY makes a rewarding detour. Trinity Street View from Great St Marys Church STAY SEE The four-star Varsity Hotel and Spa has a prime The University of Cambridge has eight museums location near the University of Cambridge’s and a botanical garden—and admission is free. colleges as well as a rooftop garden where One of the top attractions is the Fitzwilliam guests can enjoy a glass of champagne and Museum, best known for its collections of panoramic views. In keeping with its name— antiquities, medieval illuminated manuscripts, and that of a Persian emperor in a play by 16th- masterworks of painting from the Renaissance century dramaturgist Christopher Marlowe— to today. A refurbishment in 2012 made the Tamburlaine features a dramatic two-story lobby university’s Museum of Archaeology and adorned with chandeliers, antique silk rugs, and Anthropology more appealing to visitors, who plush velvet and leather furniture. The Cambridge will find there artifacts dating as far back as a COURTESY OF VISIT ENGLAND/IAIN LEWIS ENGLAND/IAIN VISIT OF COURTESY location of Hotel du Vin, part of a chain of 17 1.8 million-year-old stone tool. And if you’re a Punting past St. John's College luxury boutique hotels in the U.K., is housed techie who needs your fix, stop by the Centre in converted old university buildings where the for Computing History, a hands-on museum architectural character has been lovingly retained. that features historical collections of computers, For a unique and affordable experience, book a calculators, game consoles and mobile phones. bed-and-breakfast stay in a Cambridge college building that dates back hundreds of years; these DO accommodations are available during school Sign on with Official Walking Tours of vacations only. Cambridge for a university-sanctioned tour— the only way for the public to be guided inside EAT the university colleges. Tours meet at the Visitor We might think of hamburgers as all-American Information Centre daily. See the colleges from RIBS & BURGERS ANNIE'S BUTCH OF COURTESY fare, but it turns out, they’re popular with college another vantage point on a guided punt tour of Butch Annie's burger students everywhere. For some of the best in the College Backs on the River Cam. A punt town, head to Butch Annie’s Burgers & Ribs, boat, for non-Anglophiles, is a flat-bottomed where the burgers are made with 28-day dry-aged boat with a square-cut bow that is propelled by beef, or Steak and Honour, a new bricks-and- a “punter” pushing with a long wooden pole. mortar restaurant that grew out of the owners’ Scudamore’s Punting is the city’s oldest and wildly successful fleet of food trucks. Try a best-known operator of guided punt tours; Cambridge classic: the Chelsea bun at Fitzbillies, or rent a boat to try it yourself. The oldest a city fixture since 1921. Chelsea buns resemble university theater in Britain, ADC Theatre is cinnamon rolls, but they’re made with currants home to four resident student companies staging For more refined dining, choose Michelin-starred dramatic works, musical theater and comedy. Its Alimentum, where executive chef Mark Poynton comedy troupe, Footlights, has an alumni list prepares dishes with classic underpinnings and that includes Monty Python’s John Cleese. The modern flare. If it’s a glass of English ale you’re troupe’s performances include the December COURTESY TAMBURLAINE COURTESY OF wanting, you can’t do better than Pint Shop, Pantomime, February’s Spring Revue and The lobby of Tamburlaine raved about by The Guardian as “a rather hip bar.” biweekly sketch shows. AAA Travel • 866.222.1357 AAA.com/Traveler 13.