The Good Life: Travel: City ‘Scapes: Boston

Stay: The recently opened InterContinental Boston (510 Atlantic Avenue; 617-747-1000; intercontinentalboston.com) is the first good thing to rise above the site of the Big Dig construction project. The stacked translucent tower opens onto the new Rose Kennedy Greenway, a future hub of downtown activity, and backs up to the Fort Point Channel, whose banks are turning into a neighborhood reborn with artists — the most successful of whom will be shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art, a short walk away on the waterfront.

Eat: Oishii in Chestnut Hill has been a neighborhood sushi favorite for years. At his new South End outpost (1166 Washington Street, 617-482-8868; oishiisushi.com), chef Ting San takes his work more seriously. His sandwiches of toro between brown-rice crackers, topped with caviar, are sublime.

Spa: The InterContinental’s 6,000-square-foot spa is big like a Zen temple, with a dizzying menu of services and a gym whose floor-to-ceiling windows look back out onto the Greenway and the last remnants of the Big Dig. Massages and a snack-filled lounge combine for an experience so relaxing, it could make a hard-wired city guy almost … nervous.