It’s 10am on a sunny Wednesday. Your schedule is ridden with meetings and conference calls and all you can focus on is surfing kayak.com and planning your escape on those five days of freedom you’re allotted this calendar year. Poor thing –  you’re burned out. Before you go postal, grab a pepper packet from the office kitchen, snort it and voila’! Instant sinus infection. Now head to the roof-top pool at the Colonnade Hotel.

Opened in 1971, the Colonnade is one of Boston’s well-known landmark hotels. (Unfortunately, this is evident in its slightly dated decor) If you’re a tourist or new to the city, you probably have no idea that this gem is home to the Boston’s only out-door, roof-top pool opened to the public. If you are an urban local, shame on you for always forgetting. Known as RTP (roof-top pool, genius)  this hookie oasis has a panoramic view of beautiful Boston. Strip down to your bikini or Speedo (if you didn’t plan, there is a giant mall across the street) lay back in your chocolate tiki chair (their website photos have not been updated, their pool decor has been), order a RTP Cooler (sweet-tea vodka & lemonade) from the bar and …..ahhhh, carpal tunnel cured.

Hungry? The pool has their own menu but you’ve come this far, so go big. Request something from Brasserie Jo, the hotel’s signature restaurant. Think classic French bistro, modernized for Americans. Living next door in the Greenhouse for many years, this eatery became our home and it never disappointed. Don’t miss out on their baked ham and cheese crepe and smoked salmon plate – it’s the best in the city.

Entrance fee to the pool for the entire day is $40; pool hours are 8am-8pm. This year they introduced a half-day fee of $20 after 3pm. Even if you brown-nose a full day you can still bask by the pool after, cocktail in hand.

Tan, rested, full, tipsy. And you just got a photo with John Malkovich. (He does pilates down the street)

You are so getting fired tomorrow.