InterContinental Boston, an IHG Hotel ★★★★★

Glass on the Greenway, gardens on the channel

InterContinental Boston opened in 2006 on Atlantic Avenue, a 22-storey curve of blue glass on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, the ribbon of parks that replaced the old elevated highway. The hotel takes the lower floors and private residences the upper ones, and the whole building turns its back on the traffic to face Fort Point Channel. Between the facade and the water lie two acres of lawns and planted gardens, a rare thing downtown, used for outdoor yoga in the warmer months, and the hotel keeps its own beehives on the roof. The lobby and corridors are finished in Italian marble and Texas limestone, and a small boutique off the lobby rotates the work of local designers.

Rooms with the harbor or the skyline

All 424 rooms and suites look either across the channel and the harbor, where the replica Tea Party ships sit at their museum berth, or back over the towers of the Financial District. The rooms are large and calm, in pale greys and creams with a sofa by the window, and the bathrooms are the InterContinental signature: marble throughout, a deep soaking tub with a window into the bedroom, a separate glass shower and a granite vanity. Suites add a full sitting room, and Club InterContinental rooms open onto a members-only lounge on the twelfth floor with a private boardroom and all-day refreshments.

Matria, Loyall Counting Room and Bar Fellini

The dining rooms were rethought around Italy. Matria is a northern Italian steakhouse with a patio on the water for summer dinners; Bar Fellini serves Italian cocktails, wines and antipasti in the lobby; and the Loyall Counting Room mixes drinks with a colonial-era accent late into the evening.

A lap pool under a coffered ceiling

Spa InterContinental is a proper urban spa with massage, skincare and body treatments, but its centrepiece is the heated indoor lap pool, a 45-foot length of turquoise tile under a sculpted ceiling, lined with loungers and lit by tall windows onto the Greenway. The fitness centre next door runs around the clock behind floor-to-ceiling glass, with a trainer on hand.

Between Faneuil Hall and the Seaport

The hotel stands at the seam of three districts. Faneuil Hall Marketplace and the Freedom Trail are a few minutes north along the Greenway, the Seaport and its restaurants a short walk across the channel by the Congress Street bridge, and South Station, with trains to New York and the Silver Line to the airport, is two blocks away. The Harborwalk runs past the gardens to the New England Aquarium and Long Wharf, where the harbor ferries leave.

Why we selected it

Boston has waterfront hotels and it has spa hotels; the InterContinental is the one that combines both with gardens on the channel and a five-star chain behind the service. For a stay that keeps the water in the window and the city within walking distance, it earns its place in this selection.