As one of the United States's oldest cities, Boston has deep roots in early America and a host of memorials and monuments to prove it. Most of Boston's 18th- and 19th- century historic sites are connected by the Freedom Trail which begins at Boston Common and ends at Bunker Hill Monument in Charlestown. The Freedom Trail takes the visitor through the varied neighborhoods that characterize the city: the Italian neighborhood in the North End, the "Old Boston" neighborhood at Beacon Hill, and the Irish Community in Charlestown. Along most of the route a red line on the sidewalk shows the way; in some places the trail is marked in red brick or granite paving stones.
However, Boston is not only a historic city but also a city with modern elements (like the John Hancock Observatory or the Prudential Tower), and the biggest college town in the world.
What to see?
Those (and of course, all the others I haven't mentioned) sights are best to explore by foot. Boston bills itself as "America's Walking City", and walking is by far the easiest way to get around. When Boston was established as the first permanent European settlement in the region in 1630, it was one-third the size it is now. Parts of the city still reflect its original layout, a seemingly haphazard plan that leaves even longtime residents tearing their hair. Old Boston is littered with alleys, dead-ends, one-way streets, streets that change names, and streets named after extinct geographical features. On the plus side, every wrong turn downtown, in the North End or on Beacon Hill is a chance to see something interesting that you might otherwise have missed.
As mentioned above, Boston is also the biggest college town in the world. Actually, the center of education is Cambridge. Cambridge is so closely associated with Boston that many people believe they're the same city.
Whatever you do, spend some time in Harvard Square. It's a hodgepodge of college and highschool students, instructors, commuters, street performers, and sightseers.
The best-known part of Harvard University is Harvard Yard, actually two large quadrangles.
You might also want to visit the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a mile or so down Mass. Ave. from Harvard Square, across the Charles River from Beacon Hill and the Back Bay.
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Cape Cod was named in honor of all the codfish that the English navigator and Jamestown colonist Bartholomew Gosnold caught in the surrounding waters in 1602, when landed on this peninsula in southeastern Massachusetts.
This small strip of land supports a diverse set of landscapes - long, unbroken stretches of beach, salt marshes, hardwood forests, deep freshwater ponds carved by glaciers, and desert-like dunes sculpted by the wind.
The Cape is divided into different parts: Upper Cape, Lower Cape, Woods Hole, Chatham and Provincetown. We were mainly in the Upper Cape, that's the more suburbanized and developed part of Cape Cod, the one that's closest to the mainland.
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