Things to do
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Boston Common
Grazing land since the sixteen thirties and public ever since, twenty hectares of grass and old trees at the foot of Beacon Hill. Frog Pond freezes for skating in winter and becomes a wading pool in summer. Across Charles Street the Public Garden is the formal half, with a lagoon, swan boats in warm weather and duckling statues children queue to sit on.
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Faneuil Hall
Merchant Peter Faneuil gave the town a market house in the seventeen forties with a meeting hall above it, and the speeches made upstairs earned the building its nickname as the cradle of liberty. A gilded grasshopper still turns on the roof. The Great Hall can be visited when no event is booked. Quincy Market alongside is a food arcade and a pitch for street performers.
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Fenway Park
Baseball has been played on this ground since 1912, on a field bent to fit the streets that boxed it in. The left field wall stands eleven metres high to make up for how close it is, painted green and worked by hand from behind. Tours run through the year. A game on a warm evening is the reason to come, and the season ends in autumn.
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Freedom Trail
A red line set into the pavement links sixteen sites over four kilometres, from Boston Common past the old State House and Paul Revere's timber-framed house to the Charlestown navy yard. Following it end to end takes most of a day with stops. The stretch over the bridge to Bunker Hill sheds the crowd. Granary Burying Ground holds Revere, Hancock and Samuel Adams.
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Museum of Fine Arts
Huntington Avenue holds a collection strong where visitors do not expect it: Egyptian funerary art from the museum's own excavations, a Japanese holding few museums outside Asia can match, and a wall of Monets. The Art of the Americas wing hangs Copley portraits beside Revere's silver. Sargent painted the rotunda ceilings. Late opening on some evenings gives the quietest galleries of the week.
