Best Things to Do in Boston

This is our shortlist, roughly in order. Most of it is walkable from Boston Common. The Fenway museums, the ballpark and Cambridge are the places to use the T.

1. The Freedom Trail. A red-brick line in the pavement links sixteen sites of the Revolution over about two and a half miles. Our Freedom Trail guide tells you where to stop and what to skip.
2. Beacon Hill. Gas lamps, brick pavements, black shutters and Acorn Street, the cobbled lane in every Boston photo. Go early in the morning, before the crowds, and respect that people live here.
3. The Public Garden. Next to the Common, with a lagoon, weeping willows and the swan boats, pedal boats that have run here since 1877, in the warmer months. Children look for the bronze Make Way for Ducklings statues.
4. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. A Venetian-style palace built around a flowered courtyard, filled with art exactly as its founder arranged it. Empty frames still hang where paintings were stolen in 1990, the biggest art theft in history and still unsolved.
5. The Museum of Fine Arts. One of the largest museums in the country, with Egyptian art, Impressionists and a superb American wing. Pair it with the Gardner, a few minutes' walk away.
6. Fenway Park. The oldest ballpark in the major leagues, from 1912, with its tall left-field wall, the Green Monster. See a Red Sox game in season, or take the stadium tour.
7. Harvard and Cambridge. Harvard Yard, the bookshops and cafés of Harvard Square, and MIT down the road. See our Cambridge guide.
8. The North End. Boston's Italian neighbourhood, and its oldest, with Paul Revere's house, narrow streets and bakeries. Come hungry.
9. The Boston Public Library. The McKim Building in Copley Square has a reading room with green-shaded lamps and murals by John Singer Sargent. Free, with free art and architecture tours.
10. The harbour. Take a ferry out to the Boston Harbor Islands in summer, or just walk the Harborwalk from the Waterfront to the Seaport.
11. The Charles River Esplanade. A riverside park for walking, running and watching the sailing boats, with the Back Bay skyline behind. Sunset is the time.
12. USS Constitution. "Old Ironsides", launched in 1797 and still a commissioned US Navy ship, moored in Charlestown at the end of the Freedom Trail.

What we'd skip: Quincy Market's food hall at lunchtime, which is crowded and ordinary (eat in the North End instead), and the amphibious duck boat tours if you're short of time. They're fun for children, but you'll learn more walking.