If you are visiting one of the NMR vendors and are responsible for organizing your own trip, for instance to attend a training course, the following might be helpful for those interested in making the trip without renting a car.  Besides saving some money, this makes it possible to enjoy some nice places on foot where commuter traffic is not so enjoyable.  I have included some suggestions about the main vendor sites in Palo Alto and Billerica, and a little bit about Asilomar, site of the ENC meetings in even numbered years for many years, and hopefully, for many years to come. I have focused on places where it is possible to get a decent dinner and have the opportunity to walk around in the evening. I have not been to the Varian site in Maryland, so I don't have anything to say about it.

At the risk of belaboring the obvious, the less luggage you have, the easier it is to get around by public transit, whether or not there are any transit system-imposed limits on what you can carry.  People who (by the looks of their luggage) may be rug merchants regularly get on the Boston subway system at Logan.  On the other hand, the KX bus in San Francisco--even though it is an express bus to the airport--may refuse service to people carrying suitcases (go figure).  Although I have not had any problems with this in the U.S., it is evident in European cities that people struggling with, and distracted by, their luggage while getting on to public transit are prime candidates for pickpocketing. I have had good experiences with the reliability and timeliness of all the mass transit routes mentioned below, but it is probably not a good idea to make travel plans whereby you have to catch the last bus or train of the day or else be stranded.  Finally, many transit systems, particuarly buses, don't make change.

The most convenient way to reach Palo Alto from either the San Francisco or San Jose airports is on the Caltrain commuter rail line.  There are free shuttle buses from each airport to the nearest train station (San Bruno from SFO and Santa Clara from SJC).  On the train, it is forty minutes south from SFO and twenty minutes north from SJC (fare $3) to the closest station to Varian, California Avenue.  Most of the motels recommended by Varian are on El Camino Real, a major highway; some are within walking distance of the train station (although the Creekside would be quite a long walk).  My favorite place to stay is not on Varian's list but is only three blocks from the train station, the Hotel California.  It is about a fifteen minute walk to Varian from there, although a good part of the time may be spent waiting for a signal to cross El Camino Real. The Hotel California is a small place with small rooms (at least by American standards, though pretty typical of what you get in a two or three star place in Europe),  but it may be the best travel bargain in the Bay Area at $80 for a single room. The rooms are charmingly decorated (no two alike), the staff is very friendly, they offer a small shared kitchen and a patio, free wireless Internet, and a free breakfast.  A better breakfast is to be had downstairs at the Palo Alto Baking Company.  This is a classic bakery with a large selection of excellent pastry--it is a good place to linger over a free copy of the Palo Alto Daily News, and marvel at the price of Palo Alto real estate and the vigorous disputes in local politics over coffee and pastry. (In some of the rooms in the hotel directly above the bakery, there are delicious baking aromas in the wee hours of the morning).  

After the NFL quarterback Steve Bono was traded from the San Francisco 49ers to the Kansas City Chiefs, he gained instant notoriety in Kansas City when he was quoted as saying that the worst restaurant in San Francisco was better than the best restaurant in Kansas City.  Although that can't be quite literally true, the combination of a lot of people and a lot of disposable income does seem to create the basis for  a lot of high-functioning restaurants in the Bay Area.  I would guess there are at least twenty restaurants either on or within half a block of the short (~5 blocks) stretch of California Avenue between the Caltrain station and El Camino Real.  I have eaten at most of them and I would go back to any of the ones I have tried.  A number of them are excellent.  The three that seem to draw the consistently largest crowds are (1) a Cuban place called "La Bodeguita del Medio", a.k.a. "the little bar in the middle of the block," one of Ernest Hemingway's favorite places in Havana.  Writing in the October 2005 Atlantic Monthly, Wayne Curtis has this to say about the original: " ... a small, often raucous bar on a narrow side street.  Called the Pleasant Storage Room when it opened, in 1942, it morphed from a shop selling dried beans into a hipster hangout ... The bar attracted celebrities such as Pablo Neruda and Errol Flynn, and a photo on the wall shows a not very iconic Che Guevara sitting in a booth."  The Palo Alto incarnation is a little more sedate than that, but the Bodeguita has an outstanding bar with drinks that include one named the Hemingway.  They claim it was his favorite cocktail, but I have to take that claim with a grain of salt, because it appears he had many, many favorite cocktails; (2)  the Cafe Brioche; and (3) the slightly mysterious Bistro Elan, whose tiny sign is almost completely obscured by rampant greenery.    At the Bodeguita, you can have a frosty drink; at the Cafe Brioche, you can have frosty service, but the food is top notch. 

California Avenue has the feel of a small town's downtown, which it once was--the center of a town called Mayfield, long since engulfed by Palo Alto.  In addition to restaurants, it has various retail places; some of the ones that I found interesting include a grocery store with a lot of products that your grocery store doesn't have (e.g. organic olive oils made at California wineries), a big camera store (so far, I have only window shopped there), an outstanding wine store with late afternoon tastings, and a mazelet-filled used bookstore.  A once fine bookstore, Printers Inc, was pretty much driven out of business by Amazon, but hangs on as a very good coffee place with lots of outdoor seating where you may see and be seen (Amazon has not gotten the hang of selling espresso and biscotti). You can also buy a super size Persian rug on California Avenue, if you can figure out how to get it home ... the Caltrain is quite good about luggage, but it's not quite the Boston subway. Taken all together, this is a very civilized neighborhood indeed.  There are plenty of food and retail choices for a short stay right on Cal. Ave., with an order of magnitude more choices in every department (including Oriental rugs) in Palo Alto's downtown area around University Avenue one stop north of Cal. Ave. on the Caltrain.

The Caltrain goes as far north as downtown San Francisco, and as far south as Gilroy during rush hour (the rest of the day, the trains turn around in San Jose).  In addition to the Caltrain, there are some other very useful mass transit lines in the area: there is a free shuttle, "the Marguerite," to and from the Stanford campus, which runs along California Ave. and turns around at the Caltrain station.  You do not need to be affiliated with Stanford to ride the Marguerite.  The Stanford campus is a great place to walk around (although if you work at a public university, you may experience an envy attack), and it has various attractions and museums, including a good art museum with an even better outdoor collection of Rodin sculptures, the largest Rodin collection outside of Paris.  The picture to the right shows Jean D'Aire (was he a French tractor tycoon?), one of the "Burghers of Calais," facing his wardrobe malfunction at the Stanford chemistry department. (In Paris, with clothes on, he looks like this.)  There is also an elevator that runs to the top of the Hoover Tower (picture at left) from 10 am-4 pm; the elevator is $4, but the unctuous student guide (as Mastercard would say) is priceless.  Two express buses run right by Varian:  the Dumbarton Express, which crosses San Francisco Bay over the Dumbarton Bridge, and links up with the BART to provide access to East Bay destinations such as Berkeley; and the KX, an express bus that goes to SFO and then to downtown San Francisco destinations including the Moscone Convention Center.  The VTA #22 bus runs a long way down El Camino Real.  It is an alternative way to get to the Santa Clara Caltrain station and then transfer to the free airport bus.  The 22 bus takes longer to get there (about 40 minutes from El Camino Real and Page Mill) but runs more frequently, particularly on weekends when there is only one train per hour.

Walking is delightful in Palo Alto's typically excellent climate.  You can also rent a bike at the Bike Connection, 2086 El Camino Real, for $20 per day or $60 per week. The Stanford campus is super bike friendly with marked bike paths, wide sidewalks, and ample bike parking everywhere.  Here is a map from the Stanford website showing recommended bike routes around the area.  Some of these streets also have marked bike lanes.  Page Mill Road, Sand Hill Road, and Alpine Road all lead up into the Stanford foothills.  All of these have marked bike lanes that work quite well at separating bikes from the very heavy automobile traffic particularly at rush hour, with the possible exception of the I-280 interchanges on those roads; those require you to pay attention.  A very nice place to go around on foot is in "the Dish" natural area on the west end of campus, so named after Stanford's radio telescope which was constructed there in the 60's.  The view is very impressive across the bay, as far north as downtown San Francisco and south to San Jose on a clear day.

A whimsical attraction you can walk to from Varian (e.g. during a lunch break) is Perry the miniature donkey, in nearby Barron Park.  Perry was used as the model for Donkey, a.k.a. the "Noble Steed," in the Dreamworks movie "Shrek," and the physical resemblance is obvious.  This is a less amazing coincidence than it might seem at  first, because Dreamworks is based in Palo Alto and the number of donkeys in town can't be all that large. Unlike Eddie Murphy's character, Perry is quite reserved; his full size buddy, Niner, is much more outgoing.  To get there, go out the back of the Varian complex on Hanover, and follow Hanover a short distance to the left until you see a bike/walk path that runs parallel to a high wall on the left.  The path runs past a playground, a chicken coop, and reaches the donkey's pen just on  the other side of a bridge over a small creek.  (It is fairly amazing to find these pastoral touches just off El Camino Real and Page Mill Road.)  An attraction of a very different sort, but also suitable for a lunchtime stroll, is to go to the Fry's electronics store which you can reach by following Hansen Way across El Camino Real.  If you have ever wanted to buy an oscilloscope, a washing machine, and some junk food while checking out a display of the world's original computer mouse, all under one roof,  then Fry's is the place for you.

The Bruker buildings are in Manning Park, a technology park that is more or less in the middle of nowhere off the Middlesex Turnpike.  The hotel that Bruker recommends, the Wyndham in Billerica, is a nice hotel, with convenient door to door shuttle van service to Bruker.  However, if you don't have a car, it is just as isolated as Bruker, is not easily accessible by public transit, and taxis are expensive--over $70 with tip from Logan, and even a local taxi will be around $20 because the closest cab company is in Lowell. There is, as far as I know, only one bus line that serves Manning Park:  line 19 operated by the Lowell LRTA.  One end of the line is in downtown Lowell; the other is at the Burlington Mall in Burlington.  I have stayed at both ends of the line, and it is 20-25 minutes to Bruker from either direction (fare $1.50); however, there is only one bus per hour in either direction.  Both directions have buses that reach the corner of Manning Road and Middlesex Turnpike before 8:30 am and shortly before 5 pm, by which time training courses are typically winding down.  Coming from the north, you are nearly at Bruker when you reach Nutting Lake; from the south, the landmark is route 3 and the 99 Restaurant.  (A bus driver told me it is an interesting place to eat, though I've never had the chance to try it.) There are no marked bus stops on this part of the route, so you can choose your own spot from which to wave down the driver. It is about a five minute walk from the corner of Manning Road and Middlesex to Bruker, which is on Fortune Drive close to the second intersection of Manning Road and Fortune Drive (Fortune Drive makes a long loop and comes back around).  During training courses, the shuttle van from the Wyndham arrives about 8:45, which is when things get going (including, in some cases, unlocking the front door).  

The more interesting option, in my view, is to stay in Lowell.  Lowell is a historic Industrial Revolution cotton mill town with a national historical park, and a lot of early nineteenth century four and five story brick mill buildings have been renovated into businesses and apartments.  It had kind of a gang problem a few years ago; now, there are few people of any description on the sidewalks in the evening, and most businesses are closed after 5.  However, with its brick streets and canal walkways (below), Lowell retains its charm and there are some good downtown restaurants open for dinner here and there.  The one I liked the best was La Boniche, 145 Merrimack Street; it bills itself as having "a French accent" but they don't take that super seriously.  An Italian place on Middle Street, Fortunato's, is also good; across the street from it is the Caffe Paradiso (picture at left), open early and late for coffee and tempting Italian desserts.  There are several other restaurants of varying ethnicities in the same general area.  Someone at Bruker told me the Lowell microbreweries are also good, though they are somewhat further away from the center of downtown and can get crowded.

The 19 bus originates at the corner of Merrimack and John Streets in downtown Lowell.  A nice place to stay just a few minutes' walk away is the Doubletree in Lowell, part of the Hilton chain.  Taking a leaf from the airlines, they offer an interesting discounted nonrefundable room rate of about $68 per night including tax. To get from Logan airport to Lowell, take the free shuttle bus from the airport to the Airport subway station on the Blue line.  Subway tokens (yes, the MBTA still uses tokens) are $1.25.  You need to switch to the Orange or Green lines to get to North Station to catch a Lowell commuter train (actually the commuter trains are across the street in the Fleet Center, where the Boston Celtics play).  It is a 40 minute trip to Lowell for $5.25. There are several trains per day.  If you are planning a Saturday departure, the earliest train out of Lowell is at 7 am, and it would be pushing things to catch any flight before 9:15 am.  From the Lowell train station, there are LRTA buses going downtown, or it is about a fifteen minute walk to the Doubletree.

If time permits while you are in Boston, though, take the Orange line and get off one stop prior to North Station at Haymarket. This is the gateway to Boston's North End, famous in Revolutionary War days as the stomping grounds of Paul Revere (his house still stands, the only surviving seventeenth century house in Boston) and the location of the Old North Church (picture at left).  For the last hundred years, the North End has been a vibrant Italian neighborhood, and it has a density of restaurants, cafes and bars similar to California Avenue in Palo Alto, except they are 99.9% Italian restaurants.  Many are good.  If you like Italian seafood, look for the place on Hanover Street with the large seashell.  It opens for dinner at 5 and there is always a line out front; cash only.  For dessert, there are some tempting bakeries including Mike's Pastry, 300 Hanover Street, and Modern Pastry.  If you have even more time, Paul Revere's house and the Old North Church are only two of the stops on the Freedom Trail, a marked walkway that starts in the Boston Commons, goes past Fauneil Hall, through the North End, over the Charles, to Bunker Hill, and then to the berth of the U.S.S. Constitution.  Boston is one of America's most compact large cities (at just 46 square miles) and is generally great to walk in and terrible to drive in.  It is to be hoped that both are getting better with the recent completion of the infamous "Big Dig" project to put I-93 underground through the center of the city. 

At the other end of the 19 bus, the Burlington Mall is just a mall, but it has several pretty decent chain restaurants including a Legal Seafood.  The 19 bus stops outside the Legal Seafood.  There is also a movie theater nearby.  The Burlington Mall is not terribly well planned for pedestrian access.  The nearest motels are a couple of extended stay  (a.k.a. "infrequent maid service") places.  To get to the mall, take the Orange subway line to the end, then get on the MBTA 350 bus--check the schedule to see that you are getting on a bus that will actually stop at the mall.  I have been told that the Woburn commuter rail station is only about a 10 minute walk from the Burlington Mall, but I haven't gone that way myself.  In principle, it would be possible to stay in downtown Boston and commute to Bruker, say by taking the train to Lowell and getting the southbound 19 bus at the Lowell train station, provided you would accept a commute that would be at least an hour each way. 

A highly recommended place to stay in the Boston area, connected with a Bruker visit or not, is the Winthrop Arms Hotel.  Winthrop is right on the coast and the hotel was built in 1911 as a seaside resort.  Although principally a restaurant, and a popular one at that (it has excellent seafood), there are recently renovated guest rooms upstairs.  It's a genuinely friendly place. You can reach it on public transit by taking the Blue subway line to the Orient Heights station and taking the 712 bus out from there (operated by a private bus company; MBTA passes are not valid).

It is possible, though not super convenient either, to reach Asilomar from the Monterey airport on the Monterey bus system--it is necessary to transfer  at the transportation plaza in downtown Monterey from the 21 bus to the 1 bus, which stops right outside the entrance to Asilomar. There are also shuttle services from the San Francisco and San Jose airports to the Monterey transportation plaza, including the Monterey-Salinas airbus.  The 1 bus, which runs about once an hour, also provides a convenient way to get to the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  It also stops just a couple of blocks from "Adventures by the Sea," a good place to rent good quality bikes (they are a lot better than the bikes that Asilomar rents) at a reasonable price. Asilomar is an outstanding place to have a bike, with routes along the coast including 17 Mile Drive, and a marked bike path from Lover's Point Park in Pacific Grove all the way up to Seaside. Taking the bus down to pick up a bike is convenient, because it would be a long walk there from Asilomar without the bike, and even if you have a rental car to drive down there, getting the bike into the car may not work so well.

I have some other pages related to NMR meeting sites, with photographs:

• Pacific Grove (site of Asilomar)
• Big Sur (south of Carmel)
• Ventura (site of numerous wintertime Gordon Conferences)
• Breckenridge and Summit County bike trails (site of the 2002 and 2004 SMASH meetings)
• Savannah and Tybee Island (site of the 2003 ENC)
• Verona (site of the 2003 and 2005 SMASH)
• Canoeing in Juniper Springs, Florida (near Orlando, site of past ENCs)

Mass transit links:

• Bay Area mass transit
• Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority
• Monterey-Salinas Transit