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Experienced and first-time travelers alike rely on Fodor's Gold Guides for rich, reliable coverage the world over. Updated each year and containing a foldout Rand McNally map, a Fodor's Gold Guide is an essential tool for any kind of traveler. If only you had one guide, this is the guide for you.
Let the world's smartest guide enrich your tripVivid descriptions evoke what makes Boston unique - Local experts show you the special places - Thorough updating keeps you on track - Practical information gives you the tools to explore - Easy-to-use format puts it all at your fingertips
Choose among many hotels and restaurants in all price categoriesStay in lavish lamdmarks, sleek high-rises, mid-price favorites, wonderful bargains, and tidy B&Bs - Dine in seafood houses, treasured classics, neighborhood bistros, and the best ethnic restaurants - Check out hundreds of detailed reviews and learn what's special about each place
Mix and match our itineraries and discover the unexpectedSavvy descriptions help you decide where to go and when - Walking tours guide you all over Boston and Cambridge from the North end, Back Bay, and Beacon Hill to Harvard square and Brattle Street - Shop for antiques, books, and music - Day-trips to Lexington, Concord, Salem, and more.
Go straight to the facts you need and find all that's newUseful maps and background information - How to get there and get around - When to go - What to pack - Costs, hours, and tips by the thousands
Destination: BostonTwo destinations named Boston occupy the clutch of irregularly shaped peninsulas at the westernmost recess of Massachussetts Bay. The tourist's Boston is the old city, far older than the republic it helped to create, soul and anchor of that peculiar thing called New England civilization, and the cradle of American independence. Its most famous buildings are not merely civic landmarks but national icons; its great citizens are not the political and financial leaders of today but the Adamses, Reveres, and Hancocks who live at the crossroads of history and myth.
The other Boston, built no less by design han the original, is barely three decades old. This is the business traveler's destination, the new Boston created by high finance and higher technology, where granite and glass towers rise along what once had been rutted village lanes. In this new city, Samuel Adams is the name of a premium beer, and John Hancock is an insurance company with a dramatic headquarters tower designed by I.M. Pei.
It is entirely possible to come to Boston intent on visiting either the Freedom Trail or the 48th floor of Amalgamated Software and to get exactly what you want out of the experience. With a little extra time and effort, though, you can appreciate both the old and the new Boston and understand why they are really one and the same American city.
Pleasures and PastimesCollegesMore than anything else, the Yankee investment in scores of colleges and universities in and around Boston has helped establish its present character. People come here for schooling and never go home. And every year in August and September, fleets of trucks, vans, and overloaded family sedans converge on the city as students of BC, BU, Harvard, MIT, Northeastern, and more than a dozen others welcome back the thousands of students who help rouse the city from its summer rest.
Day TripsYou've only to travel a short distance to visit sites connected with historical figures you started reading about back in grade school.
HistoryPerhaps no one today would speak of the Boston State House as "the hub of the solar system," as Oliver Wendell Holmes once did, yet it is very much at the heart of American history, both past and present. So much of the political ferment that spawned the nation took place here. The earthly remains of Cotton and Increase Mather, the 17th-century Boston theocrats, are in Copp's Hill Burying Ground; the chips in the headstones came about during British soldiers' target practices, and you can still see the pockmarks of musket balls. It was at Faneuil Hall that Samuel Adams first suggested, in 1772, that the Colonies organize a Committee of Correspondence to maintain lines of communication in the face of British repression. In the North End is the Old North Church, famous for the two lanterns that glimmered from its steeple on the night of April 18, 1775, warning Americans of British troop movements by sea. Heroes of the American Revolution are buried in its Old Granary Burial Ground: Samuel Adams, John Hancock, James Otis, Paul Revere. American portraitist Gilbert Stuart is buried in the Central Burying Ground, along with scores of British casualties of the Battle of Bunker Hill. Moored in Fort Point Channel is a replica of one of the ships whose forcible unloading occasioned the famous Boston Tea Party. And all around these sights and sites are vintage buildings, both maintained and restored, so that the feeling of history surrounding you is almost palpable.
Parks and GardensThe Boston Common, the oldest public park in the United States, is only one of Boston's green spaces. The Boston Public Garden, which abuts it across Charles Street, is the country's oldest botanical garden; the irregularly shaped pond in the center is famous for the swan boats that cruise it in warm months. The Fens, a landscape of meadows, trees, gardens, and reed-bound pools designed by noted landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, marks the beginning of Boston's famous Emerald Necklace, a chain of parks that extends along the Fenway, Riverway, and Jamaica Way to Jamaica Pond, the Arnold Arboretum, and Franklin Park. This loosely connected necklace of green has made Boston famous among 20th-century urban planners.
WalkingBoston is on a human scale, and it is best experienced by walking. The North End, Boston's Italian neighborhood, just a 20-minute walk from Beacon Hill, is quite another world. The highlight of any visit to Boston in should be the memory of walks and sights around town: along the red brick sidewalks of Beacon Hill (particularly Pinckney, Mt. Vernon, Chestnut, and Beacon streets), along the Freedom Trail through the crannied lanes of the North End, catching the Charles River breezes from the Esplanade, along the shores of the Public Garden's pond, along the Boston Harbor waterfront at the back side of the New England Aquarium, and through the Arnold Arboretum, especially in spring, when its lilacs, azaleas, rhododendrons, and fruit trees are in full bloom. Another memorable walk: from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, down Newbury Street to Gloucester Street, right on Gloucester to Commonwealth Avenue, and right on Commonwealth to the Public Garden.
