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What to do in
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Old North
Church
193 Salem St.,
Boston, MA
Phone: 617-523-6676
It's disputed whether church sexton Robert
Newman hung lanterns in Old North Church's steeple, warning
Minutemen of British movements in the Revolutionary War, but
the church is still worth a look for its eight old bells (the
first cast in the New World) and ancient
clock.
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It's easy
enough to get to know Boston by following the Freedom
Trail on foot. If you prefer to be guided, narrated trips
run throughout the day aboard the hundred-minute Old Town
Trolley Tours (tel
617-269-7010; $20, $7 kids aged 4-12) or the
similarly priced Discover Boston
Trolley Tours (tel
617-742-1440, ), which specializes in narrated
audio tours in multiple languages. But nothing is as popular
(or as novel) as a Boston Duck
Tour (adults $22, kids 4-12 $12; tel
617-723-DUCK, ), a very entertaining romp by land and
by sea aboard a real WWII amphibious landing vehicle. Same-day
tickets are sold inside the Prudential Center daily April
through November. Boston By Foot, 77 N Washington St (tel
617/367-2345), conducts ninety-minute walking tours for $8.
Also useful are the bus
excursions further afield to Lexington, Concord, Salem
and Plymouth with Brush Hill Tours/Gray Line
(tel 617-720-6342, or ). Boston Bike
Tours (tel
617-308-5902, ), on Boston Common, can take you
around for a couple of gentle hours by bike. A two-hour tour
costs $18, or only $8 if you have your own bike; either way, a
helmet, map and water are included.
Quincy Market
Grab some take-out scrod and hang
with tourists and townies in Quincy Market, a bustling complex
of oddball stores, fast-food restaurants and
bars.
Harvard University Tour
The guides can be annoyingly cheerful, but it's
worth taking a tour of this impressive if over-hyped bastion
of Ivy-League education - if just for the oft-told tale about
how the iconic John Harvard statue isn't really a likeness of
John Harvard at all.
Durgin
Park
Durgin Park has been serving
traditional Yankee fare such as pot roast and roast beef since
1827, and despite the grumpy waiters, locals still have rowdy
fun at the restaurant's long, communal
tables.
Fenway Park
Phone:
617-267-1700 box office;
617-267-8661 recorded info;
617-236-6666
Watch a game in Fenway
Park, the nation's most storied and quirkiest baseball stadium
and home to the legendary Green Monster, Fenway's towering,
37-foot left-field wall.
Harvard Square
Harvard Square
gets particularly lively on weekend nights, as a sometimes
volatile mix of teen punks, religious zealots, musicians and
students converge on the university's social center.
Isabella Stewart Gardner
Museum
Phone:
617-566-1401- 617-566-1088 café
This Venetian palazzo and the
art stand as a monument to one woman's extraordinary
taste. Paintings -- including such masterpieces as Titian's
Rape of Europa, Giorgione's Christ Bearing the Cross, Piero
della Francesca's Hercules, and Sargent's El Jaleo. A quaint
restaurant overlooks the garden, and a first-floor gallery has
revolving exhibits of historic and contemporary
art.
Paul Revere
House
19 North Sq., Boston, MA
Phone:
617-523-2338
It's interesting that
the oldest house standing in downtown Boston should also have
been the home of Paul Revere, patriot activist and
silversmith. It has been restored to an
approximation of its original 17th-century
appearance.
COST: $2.50;
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| Kids Books |
What can children do
in
Boston? |
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Boston: What to
Do, Where to Go and how to Have Fun in Boston
 
Everything Kids'
Travel Activity Book: Games to Play, Songs to Sing, Fun Stuff
to Do - Guaranteed to Keep You Busy the Whole Ride!
 
Fodor's Around
Boston with Kids: 68 Great Things to Do Together
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- Children's
Museum - 617-426-6500 or
617-426-8855
300 Congress St.,
Boston
Don't let the name deceive you - this is
a fun museum for any age. Creative hands-on
exhibits. The downstairs museum shop is filled with
children's books and gifts; upstairs, at Recycle, industrial
raw material is sold in bulk. A full schedule of
special exhibits, festivals, and performances. COST: $7, $6
for kids 2-15, free for kids under 1; $1 Fri. 5-9.
Sat.-Thurs. 10-5, Fri. 10-9. T stop: South Station.
www.bostonkids.org
- Faneuil Hall Marketplace -
617-338-2323
- New England
Aquarium -
617-973-5200
Inside the
main facility, you can see penguins, jellyfish, sea otters,
a variety of sharks, and other exotic sea
creatures, more than 2,000 species in all. Some call
home a four-story, 200,000-gallon ocean reef tank, one
of the largest of its kind in the world. COST: $12.50.
July-early Sept. Mon.-Tues. and Fri. 9-6, Wed.-Thurs. 9-8,
weekends 9-7; early Sept.-June, weekdays 9-5, weekends 9-6.
T stop: State St. www.neaq.org
Museum of Fine
Arts - 617-267-9300
offers special
weekend and after-school programs.
- Museum of
Science 617-723-2500
- Sports Museum of New
England 617-624-1234.
- Prudential Center
Skywalk 617-859-0648
- Harvard Museum of Natural
History 617-495-3045
- John F. Kennedy Library
and Museum 617-929-4523-website
The John F. Kennedy Presidential
Library and Museum is dedicated to the memory of our
nation's thirty-fifth President and to all those who through
the art of politics seek a new and better
world.
- Larz Anderson Auto
Museum 617-522-6547.
- Paul Revere House 617-523-2338
- Swan
boats 617-522-1966
- The Boston
Tea Party Ship & Museum 617-338-1773 website
- Walking Tours--Boston By Foot 617-367-2345, or
617-367-3766 for recorded information; "Boston By Little Feet," that's geared to
children 6 to 12 years old. website
- The Historic Neighborhoods
Foundation 617-426-1885
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