Explore Boston

Faneuil Hall is a red-brick market and meeting hall in downtown Boston, opened in 1742 and enlarged by Charles Bulfinch in 1806. Known as the Cradle of Liberty for the speeches and protests held there before the American Revolution, it has shops on the ground floor, a National Park Service visitor center and the Great Hall upstairs, where rangers give talks.

Quincy Market is a granite market hall beside Faneuil Hall in downtown Boston, designed by Alexander Parris and opened in 1826, with a domed central rotunda and a portico at each end. Restored in the 1970s as part of Faneuil Hall Marketplace, its long central hall is lined with food stalls, flanked by the North and South Market buildings with shops.

The Massachusetts State House is the seat of the state legislature and the governor's offices, built on Beacon Hill to a design by Charles Bulfinch and completed in 1798. Its dome, sheathed in copper by Paul Revere in 1802, is now covered in gold leaf. Docents lead tours of the marble halls and chambers inside, and the facade faces Boston Common.

Boston Common is a public park of 20 hectares in downtown Boston, set aside in 1634 and the oldest city park in the United States. Once used for grazing cattle and militia drills, it now has lawns, ballfields, the Frog Pond with winter skating, the Central Burying Ground and the city's visitor center, where the Freedom Trail begins.

The Boston Public Garden is a park beside Boston Common, laid out from 1837 as the first public botanical garden in the United States. Paths wind among flowerbeds, statues and old trees around a lagoon crossed by a small suspension bridge, where pedal-powered Swan Boats have been run by the Paget family for over a century.

USS Constitution is a three-masted wooden frigate of the US Navy, launched in Boston in 1797 and still in commission, crewed by Navy sailors. It earned the name Old Ironsides in the War of 1812. The ship is berthed at the Charlestown Navy Yard, where visitors can go aboard, and the USS Constitution Museum beside it covers its history.

The Bunker Hill Monument is a 67-metre granite obelisk on Breed's Hill in Charlestown, marking the Battle of Bunker Hill of 17 June 1775. Designed by Solomon Willard, it was begun in 1825 and completed in 1842. A spiral stair of 294 steps leads to the top, and the Bunker Hill Museum across the street covers the battle; the site is part of Boston National Historical Park.