23 Top-Rated Tourist Attractions in Boston

Although the four Harvard Museums that make up this complex contain treasures such as the artifacts brought back by Lewis and Clark, for most people, the highlight is the more than 3,000 models of 830 species of flowers and plants, some with insects, and all so realistic that you will have trouble believing they are made of glass. I marvel at these anew, each time I see them.

Overlooking the waterfront, the New England Aquarium features more than 20,000 fish and aquatic animals representing over 550 species. A man-made Caribbean coral reef houses a large variety of tropical fish and underwater life including sharks, turtles, and moray eels.

On the night of December 16, 1773, more than a year before the first battle of the American Revolution, angry Bostonians protesting a tax on goods shipped to the colonies, stormed ships from England and threw the tea into the harbor at this site.

Boston's lively Italian neighborhood, known as the North End, is one of Boston's oldest, where the silversmith and activist leader Paul Revere lived at the time of the American Revolution.

Harvard University, founded in 1636, is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and is widely considered one of the world's leading academic centers.

Exhibits in the extensive Museum of Science encourage learning through hands-on exploration of science and technology, but the museum is not just for children.

Nicknamed Old Ironsides, USS Constitution is the oldest commissioned ship in the United States Navy, and is still commanded and crewed by Navy personnel. The ship is open to visitors, who can go below desks and hear about the ship's construction and action at sea.

Set in a building its eccentric creator modeled after a 15th-century Venetian palace, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum displays its collections in rooms surrounding a four-story central courtyard filled with flowering plants and fountains.

In the heart of the city is Boston Common, America's oldest park and the start of the Freedom Trail. In this large green space, which is much used by locals year-round, are various monuments and the Central Burying Ground of 1756.

Known as the "cradle of liberty," Faneuil Hall was built in 1740-42 by Huguenot merchant Peter Faneuil as a market hall and presented to the city on condition that it should always be open to the public.