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Tours in Boston |
Freedom Trail
This self-guided, 4km (2.5-mile) walking tour starts at the Boston Common Visitor Information Center and follows a red-brick line on the pavement. Its historic sites are associated with the movement to free the colonies from British control and information is provided at every point. The trail weaves through North End, over the Charles River and onto the Bunker Hill Monument, passing sites that pertain to the American Revolution. Many of its locations have their own admission conditions and opening hours. The trail's highlights include the Park Street Church, an early 1800s, anti-slavery venue, Granary Burying Ground, where revolutionaries Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere and the original ‘Mother' Elizabeth Goose are interred, the Old South Meeting House, the site of the decisive meeting regarding the Tea Party, Faneuil Hall, the Paul Revere House and the USS Constitution.
An in-depth guide, Boston's Freedom Trail, by Charles Bahne, is available at most sites. A two-hour Freedom Trail audio guide of the trail is available at the Boston Common Visitor Information Center.
Freedom Trail Foundation
99 Chauncy Street, Suite 401
Tel: (617) 357 8300.
Website: www.thefreedomtrail.org
The National Park Service conducts free 90-minute tours that begin at the Boston National Historic Park and cover Freedom Trail highlights from the Old South Meeting House to the Old North Church. The tours leave at regular intervals in the spring, summer and autumn, weather permitting.
Boston National Historical Park
15 State Street
Tel: (617) 242 5642.
Website: www.nps.gov/bost
Black Heritage Trail
Celebrating 19th-century African-American history and contributions, this 2.5km (1.6-mile) trail includes 14 historic sites, most in the Beacon Hill district. Some of its attractions include the Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial, a commemoration to the first black regiment of the Civil War, the Phillips School, one of the first mixed-race schools, and the home of the black abolitionist, John J Smith House, as well as part of the Underground Railroad and the Lewis and Harriet Hayden House. The trail's last stop, the 1806 African Meeting House, 8 Smith Court, is the oldest existing church building in the USA dedicated to the black community. Tours of the Black Heritage Trail can be arranged by contacting the Boston African National Historic Site.
Boston African National Historic Site
14 Beacon Street
Tel: (617) 742 5415.
Website: www.nps.gov/boaf
Opening hours: Guided trail tours available year round by appointment or Jul-Aug 1000, 1200 and 1400. Tours depart from the Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial.
Museum of Afro-American History
New England's largest Afro-American museum has in-depth information on white abolitionists and free African Americans.
46 Joy Street
Tel: (617) 725 0022.
Website: www.afroammuseum.org
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 1000-1600.
Free admission (suggested donation).
Harvard University & Harvard Square
A trip to Boston would be incomplete without crossing the river to visit one of the country's oldest (1638) and most prestigious universities. Combined with the neighbouring and equally prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), there are over 30,000 students from all over the world enrolled here. Harvard Square is actually a triangle of brick pavement sitting above the Harvard subway station. In and around it are a couple of dozen cafes, bookshops, banks and restaurants, providing a backdrop to street performers, politically and religiously motivated campaigners and lots of ordinary pedestrian activity according to the season and the weather. Harvard University makes up one side of the triangle. The Out of Town newsagents is itself an institution - a good place to buy a local or foreign paper from before settling into a cafe and soaking up the student-cum-intellectual atmosphere.
A focal point for visitors is the Harvard Yard (1636), which is the entrance into the quadrangle surrounded by ivy-covered buildings and a cloistered, peaceful existence. The buildings chronicle American architecture from colonial 18th century to the present day. The Harvard University Events and Information Center offers free tours of the Yard.
Harvard also has six world-class museums worth visiting. Fogg Art Museum covers the European Renaissance to the modern day, with notable works by Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Whistler and Klee. A second art museum is the Bush-Reisinger Museum, the only museum in the country dedicated to the understanding of Central and North European art between 1880-1980. The Arthur Sackler Museum focuses on Islamic and Asian exhibits, including Chinese jade, Japanese woodprints and Indian art. The fourth, the Museum of Natural History, is renowned for its display of authentic-looking, hand-blown glass flowers. The Semitic Museum has a collection of Middle Eastern art and archaeology with artefacts from Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Levant. Boston's sixth museum, The Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, is a collection of exhibits of archaeology and cultures from six continents. A ticket secures admission to the art museums (Fogg, Bush-Reisinger and Arthur Sackler), which encapsulates a history of world art in over 80,000 exhibits. A Hot Ticket, valid for one year, provides admission to all six of them. Hot Tickets are sold at each of the museums. Check hours on holidays.
Fogg Art Museum and Bush-Reisinger Museum
32 Quincy Street
Arthur Sackler Museum
485 Broadway
Tel: (617) 495 9400.
Website: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 1000-1700, Sun 1300-1700.
Admission charge.
Museum of Natural History
It is worth the price of admission just to see the 4,200 plant models (847 different species as well as cross-sections of fruits) made of hand-blown glass. Produced between 1886 and 1936, they were created to help Harvard students study botany. Each is so detailed, it is difficult believe they are not real plants. The museum is also known for its 745kg (1,642lb) amethyst geode.
26 Oxford Street
Tel: (617) 495 3045.
Website: www.hmnh.harvard.edu
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700.
Admission charge.
The Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology
11 Divinity Avenue
Tel: (617) 496 1027.
Website: www.peabody.harvard.edu
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700.
Admission charge.
Semitic Museum
6 Divinity Ave
Tel: (617) 495 4631.
Website: www.fas.harvard.edu/~semitic
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 1000-1600, Sun 1300-1600.
Free admission.
Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum
This is actually part of a larger complex on Museum Wharf where the Children's Museum and the Computer Museum are also to be found. The ‘Tea Party' was an act of rebellion against British rule and in particular against new taxes, imposed on, among other commodities, tea. The protest took place on 16 December 1773. A group of Bostonians, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded the tea-clipper Beaver and threw all of its cargo into the harbour waters. Visitors can discover the full story on-board a full-size replica ship, Beaver II. Following a fire, the museum has been temporarily closed. The planned reopening is summer 2009.
380 Dorchester Street
Tel: (617) 269 7150.
Website: www.bostonteapartyship.com
Opening hours: Mar-Nov daily 0900-1700 (until 1800 in summer). Temporarily closed until summer 2009.
Admission charge.
The Children's Museum
Considered one of the top three children's museums in the country, The Children's Museum is a wonderland for kids 0-10 years old, and the place where they are encouraged to touch everything. One of its most popular exhibits, Arthur's World, patterned after Marc Brown's books and the Public Broadcasting series, encourages role-playing, fantasy exploration, reading and writing in the child's favourite Arthur setting.
300 Congress Street
Tel: (617) 426 6500.
Website: www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org
Opening hours: Sat-Thurs 1000-1700, Fri 1000-2100.
Admission charge.
JFK Presidential Library and Museum
Designed by famous architect I M Pei, and located on the UMass campus, the JFK Library and Museum chronicles the life of Jack Kennedy until his assassination on 23 November 1963. The exhibition begins with an 18-minute documentary of Kennedy's life from birth until his presidential nomination in 1960. Products of the times (kitchen appliances, 1960s TV commercials, magazines and newspapers) bring to life the era when JFK was in the political spotlight. TV monitors broadcast his speeches and there is a reproduction of the TV studio where the Kennedy-Nixon debates took place. His presidential accomplishments are displayed in a reproduction of the White House. Not to be missed is the view of the harbour from the building. JFK's sailboat, complete with sail flags that spell out JFK and JBK (Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy), sits on the shore.
Columbia Point
Tel: (617) 514 1600 or 1 866 535 1960/JFK 1960.
Website: www.jfklibrary.org
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700 (except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day).
Admission charge.
The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity
Behind the Renaissance Revival basilica is the world headquarters of the First Church of Christ Science and The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity. Baker founded both the church and the Christian Science Monitor. The library is a plethora of her works and the Quest Gallery features exhibits on her life and philosophy. What attracts most tourists is the three-storey Mapparium. Measuring over 9m (30ft) in diameter, the structure is an inverted stained-glass globe with acoustics so fine that even the smallest whisper is a shout. Visitors enter the globe, via a glass bridge and are treated to a view of the world borders as they were in 1935. The 10-minute audio programme contrasts the then and now world.
200 Massachusetts Avenue
Tel: (617) 450 7000 or 1 888 222 3711.
Website: www.marybakereddylibrary.org
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1000-1600.
Admission charge.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Truly a treasure, it is easy to idle away an entire day at the MFA. Its impressive worldwide collection spans from 6,000BC to the contemporary works of such artists as Andy Warhol and Rineke Dijkstra. Of note is the museum's Asian collection. Its Temple Room has the finest Buddhist collection outside Japan, and the collection of Netsuke (Japanese fine art of miniature sculpture used on obis (Japanese sashes) to counterbalance purses, tobacco cases or medicine containers) is fascinating. The Chinese collection includes stone sculptures and furniture. The MFA's Impressionism gallery is small but significant, displaying works of Renoir, Monet, Cassatt, Degas, Pissaro and Cezanne.
465 Huntington Avenue
Tel: (617) 267 9300.
Website: www.mfa.org
Opening hours: Sat-Tues 1000-1645, Wed-Fri 1000-2145.
Admission charge.
New England Aquarium
Step inside and discover the world of the underwater. A spiral ramp ascends four floors while circling a giant tank and passing a critical care ward for sick animals, a touch tank, penguins, a coral reef, sharks, eels, turtles and lots of other creatures of the deep which serve to awe and educate visitors. The frogs dwell on the lower level near the ecosystem exhibit. There is also an IMAX theatre, a kids' activity centre and an outdoor sea lion show. Touch, feed and get kissed by a sea lion when participating in the Trainer for the Afternoon programme.
Central Wharf
Tel: (617) 973 5200 or 5277 (recorded information).
Website: www.neaq.org
Opening hours: Mon-Thurs 0900-1800, Fri-Sun 0900-1900 (Jul-early Sep); Mon-Fri 0900-1700, Sat-Sun 0900-1800 (early Sep-Jun).
Admission charge.
This self-guided, 4km (2.5-mile) walking tour starts at the Boston Common Visitor Information Center and follows a red-brick line on the pavement. Its historic sites are associated with the movement to free the colonies from British control and information is provided at every point. The trail weaves through North End, over the Charles River and onto the Bunker Hill Monument, passing sites that pertain to the American Revolution. Many of its locations have their own admission conditions and opening hours. The trail's highlights include the Park Street Church, an early 1800s, anti-slavery venue, Granary Burying Ground, where revolutionaries Samuel Adams, John Hancock and Paul Revere and the original ‘Mother' Elizabeth Goose are interred, the Old South Meeting House, the site of the decisive meeting regarding the Tea Party, Faneuil Hall, the Paul Revere House and the USS Constitution.
An in-depth guide, Boston's Freedom Trail, by Charles Bahne, is available at most sites. A two-hour Freedom Trail audio guide of the trail is available at the Boston Common Visitor Information Center.
Freedom Trail Foundation
99 Chauncy Street, Suite 401
Tel: (617) 357 8300.
Website: www.thefreedomtrail.org
The National Park Service conducts free 90-minute tours that begin at the Boston National Historic Park and cover Freedom Trail highlights from the Old South Meeting House to the Old North Church. The tours leave at regular intervals in the spring, summer and autumn, weather permitting.
Boston National Historical Park
15 State Street
Tel: (617) 242 5642.
Website: www.nps.gov/bost
Black Heritage Trail
Celebrating 19th-century African-American history and contributions, this 2.5km (1.6-mile) trail includes 14 historic sites, most in the Beacon Hill district. Some of its attractions include the Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial, a commemoration to the first black regiment of the Civil War, the Phillips School, one of the first mixed-race schools, and the home of the black abolitionist, John J Smith House, as well as part of the Underground Railroad and the Lewis and Harriet Hayden House. The trail's last stop, the 1806 African Meeting House, 8 Smith Court, is the oldest existing church building in the USA dedicated to the black community. Tours of the Black Heritage Trail can be arranged by contacting the Boston African National Historic Site.
Boston African National Historic Site
14 Beacon Street
Tel: (617) 742 5415.
Website: www.nps.gov/boaf
Opening hours: Guided trail tours available year round by appointment or Jul-Aug 1000, 1200 and 1400. Tours depart from the Robert Gould Shaw and 54th Regiment Memorial.
Museum of Afro-American History
New England's largest Afro-American museum has in-depth information on white abolitionists and free African Americans.
46 Joy Street
Tel: (617) 725 0022.
Website: www.afroammuseum.org
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 1000-1600.
Free admission (suggested donation).
Harvard University & Harvard Square
A trip to Boston would be incomplete without crossing the river to visit one of the country's oldest (1638) and most prestigious universities. Combined with the neighbouring and equally prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), there are over 30,000 students from all over the world enrolled here. Harvard Square is actually a triangle of brick pavement sitting above the Harvard subway station. In and around it are a couple of dozen cafes, bookshops, banks and restaurants, providing a backdrop to street performers, politically and religiously motivated campaigners and lots of ordinary pedestrian activity according to the season and the weather. Harvard University makes up one side of the triangle. The Out of Town newsagents is itself an institution - a good place to buy a local or foreign paper from before settling into a cafe and soaking up the student-cum-intellectual atmosphere.
A focal point for visitors is the Harvard Yard (1636), which is the entrance into the quadrangle surrounded by ivy-covered buildings and a cloistered, peaceful existence. The buildings chronicle American architecture from colonial 18th century to the present day. The Harvard University Events and Information Center offers free tours of the Yard.
Harvard also has six world-class museums worth visiting. Fogg Art Museum covers the European Renaissance to the modern day, with notable works by Renoir, Monet, Van Gogh, Whistler and Klee. A second art museum is the Bush-Reisinger Museum, the only museum in the country dedicated to the understanding of Central and North European art between 1880-1980. The Arthur Sackler Museum focuses on Islamic and Asian exhibits, including Chinese jade, Japanese woodprints and Indian art. The fourth, the Museum of Natural History, is renowned for its display of authentic-looking, hand-blown glass flowers. The Semitic Museum has a collection of Middle Eastern art and archaeology with artefacts from Egypt, Mesopotamia and the Levant. Boston's sixth museum, The Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology, is a collection of exhibits of archaeology and cultures from six continents. A ticket secures admission to the art museums (Fogg, Bush-Reisinger and Arthur Sackler), which encapsulates a history of world art in over 80,000 exhibits. A Hot Ticket, valid for one year, provides admission to all six of them. Hot Tickets are sold at each of the museums. Check hours on holidays.
Fogg Art Museum and Bush-Reisinger Museum
32 Quincy Street
Arthur Sackler Museum
485 Broadway
Tel: (617) 495 9400.
Website: www.artmuseums.harvard.edu
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 1000-1700, Sun 1300-1700.
Admission charge.
Museum of Natural History
It is worth the price of admission just to see the 4,200 plant models (847 different species as well as cross-sections of fruits) made of hand-blown glass. Produced between 1886 and 1936, they were created to help Harvard students study botany. Each is so detailed, it is difficult believe they are not real plants. The museum is also known for its 745kg (1,642lb) amethyst geode.
26 Oxford Street
Tel: (617) 495 3045.
Website: www.hmnh.harvard.edu
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700.
Admission charge.
The Peabody Museum of Anthropology and Ethnology
11 Divinity Avenue
Tel: (617) 496 1027.
Website: www.peabody.harvard.edu
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700.
Admission charge.
Semitic Museum
6 Divinity Ave
Tel: (617) 495 4631.
Website: www.fas.harvard.edu/~semitic
Opening hours: Mon-Fri 1000-1600, Sun 1300-1600.
Free admission.
Boston Tea Party Ship & Museum
This is actually part of a larger complex on Museum Wharf where the Children's Museum and the Computer Museum are also to be found. The ‘Tea Party' was an act of rebellion against British rule and in particular against new taxes, imposed on, among other commodities, tea. The protest took place on 16 December 1773. A group of Bostonians, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded the tea-clipper Beaver and threw all of its cargo into the harbour waters. Visitors can discover the full story on-board a full-size replica ship, Beaver II. Following a fire, the museum has been temporarily closed. The planned reopening is summer 2009.
380 Dorchester Street
Tel: (617) 269 7150.
Website: www.bostonteapartyship.com
Opening hours: Mar-Nov daily 0900-1700 (until 1800 in summer). Temporarily closed until summer 2009.
Admission charge.
The Children's Museum
Considered one of the top three children's museums in the country, The Children's Museum is a wonderland for kids 0-10 years old, and the place where they are encouraged to touch everything. One of its most popular exhibits, Arthur's World, patterned after Marc Brown's books and the Public Broadcasting series, encourages role-playing, fantasy exploration, reading and writing in the child's favourite Arthur setting.
300 Congress Street
Tel: (617) 426 6500.
Website: www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org
Opening hours: Sat-Thurs 1000-1700, Fri 1000-2100.
Admission charge.
JFK Presidential Library and Museum
Designed by famous architect I M Pei, and located on the UMass campus, the JFK Library and Museum chronicles the life of Jack Kennedy until his assassination on 23 November 1963. The exhibition begins with an 18-minute documentary of Kennedy's life from birth until his presidential nomination in 1960. Products of the times (kitchen appliances, 1960s TV commercials, magazines and newspapers) bring to life the era when JFK was in the political spotlight. TV monitors broadcast his speeches and there is a reproduction of the TV studio where the Kennedy-Nixon debates took place. His presidential accomplishments are displayed in a reproduction of the White House. Not to be missed is the view of the harbour from the building. JFK's sailboat, complete with sail flags that spell out JFK and JBK (Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy), sits on the shore.
Columbia Point
Tel: (617) 514 1600 or 1 866 535 1960/JFK 1960.
Website: www.jfklibrary.org
Opening hours: Daily 0900-1700 (except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day).
Admission charge.
The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity
Behind the Renaissance Revival basilica is the world headquarters of the First Church of Christ Science and The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity. Baker founded both the church and the Christian Science Monitor. The library is a plethora of her works and the Quest Gallery features exhibits on her life and philosophy. What attracts most tourists is the three-storey Mapparium. Measuring over 9m (30ft) in diameter, the structure is an inverted stained-glass globe with acoustics so fine that even the smallest whisper is a shout. Visitors enter the globe, via a glass bridge and are treated to a view of the world borders as they were in 1935. The 10-minute audio programme contrasts the then and now world.
200 Massachusetts Avenue
Tel: (617) 450 7000 or 1 888 222 3711.
Website: www.marybakereddylibrary.org
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 1000-1600.
Admission charge.
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Truly a treasure, it is easy to idle away an entire day at the MFA. Its impressive worldwide collection spans from 6,000BC to the contemporary works of such artists as Andy Warhol and Rineke Dijkstra. Of note is the museum's Asian collection. Its Temple Room has the finest Buddhist collection outside Japan, and the collection of Netsuke (Japanese fine art of miniature sculpture used on obis (Japanese sashes) to counterbalance purses, tobacco cases or medicine containers) is fascinating. The Chinese collection includes stone sculptures and furniture. The MFA's Impressionism gallery is small but significant, displaying works of Renoir, Monet, Cassatt, Degas, Pissaro and Cezanne.
465 Huntington Avenue
Tel: (617) 267 9300.
Website: www.mfa.org
Opening hours: Sat-Tues 1000-1645, Wed-Fri 1000-2145.
Admission charge.
New England Aquarium
Step inside and discover the world of the underwater. A spiral ramp ascends four floors while circling a giant tank and passing a critical care ward for sick animals, a touch tank, penguins, a coral reef, sharks, eels, turtles and lots of other creatures of the deep which serve to awe and educate visitors. The frogs dwell on the lower level near the ecosystem exhibit. There is also an IMAX theatre, a kids' activity centre and an outdoor sea lion show. Touch, feed and get kissed by a sea lion when participating in the Trainer for the Afternoon programme.
Central Wharf
Tel: (617) 973 5200 or 5277 (recorded information).
Website: www.neaq.org
Opening hours: Mon-Thurs 0900-1800, Fri-Sun 0900-1900 (Jul-early Sep); Mon-Fri 0900-1700, Sat-Sun 0900-1800 (early Sep-Jun).
Admission charge.
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