by Jillian Saftel, News Correspondent

While the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is only a 10 minute walk from Northeastern, the minute you step inside it feels like you’ve traveled centuries past back into Renaissance Italy.
The museum is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday to Sunday, and offers a late night option to view the Gardner’s art collection. The museum calls Gardner After Hours “a new kind of night out.” Offered monthly, on the third Thursday from 5:30 pm to 9:30 pm with tickets ranging from $5 to $12, After Hours is a unique way to experience the Gardner at night, the museum’s curator of education and public programs, Peggy Burchenal said.
Free music is offered in the museum’s courtyard, there’s a bar and refreshments, and concerts are held in a separate room for an additional fee.
“There are also gallery talks where you can learn more about Gardner and the museum she created and spend time looking at art with your peers,” Burchenal said.
She also said the games offered at After Hours are really fun.
“You get a set of clues at the welcome desk and go upstairs to find something,” Burchena said. “You get colored necklaces for every clue you answer correctly and when you answer all the clues correctly you get a prize.”
Born in 1840, Isabella Stewart Gardner had the idea for the museum when she was just 16. According to the museum’s curator of education and public programs, Peggy Burchenal, she traveled to Europe with her parents and after seeing the palaces in Italy, she wrote to a friend, saying that if she were ever able to, she would open a museum in the United States where people could see real art, Burchenal said.
When Gardner’s father died in 1891, he left her $2 million and that’s when she and her husband started their art collection, Burchenal said.
“In 1896, Gardner acquired Rembrandt’s self-portrait and that’s when she and her husband realized their collection had become museum quality,” Burchenal said. “And even though her husband died when he was relatively young in 1898, she continued collecting.”
Gardner didn’t have to do it alone: She befriended Bernard Berenson, a Harvard student studying art history, who helped her purchase many paintings, Burchenal said. Gardner was also close with John Singer Sargent, one of many painters she became friends with.
Burchenal said Gardner designed the museum herself and it opened in 1903.
“It was built as a museum but based on the idea of an Italian palazzo and the kind of architecture you see in Venice,” she said.
Burchenal said the best part is being able to meet people and look at things you normally wouldn’t have.
“It’s an easy and informal way to be introduced to the museum,” she said. “And the atmosphere is really romantic.”
Located at 280 The Fenway, regular admission is $5 with a college ID, so if you’re looking for a break from the everyday hustle and bustle of the city, the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum is an escape right around the corner.