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With its yacht races and grand manses, Newport has been a playground for the rich since the late 1860s. Many of the elaborate so-called “cottages” built by 19th-century industrialists are open for tours, including Breakers (Ochre Point Av). For natural beauty, hike the 3.6-mile (5.5 km) Cliff Walk overlooking Narragansett Bay and Easton’s Beach.

An 1804 Charles Bulfinch design, 55 Mount Vernon is one of the earliest examples of residential architecture on Beacon Hill. Rose Nichols, the house’s principal occupant for 75 years, bequeathed her home to the city as a museum, which would provide a glimpse of late-19th and early 20th-century life on the Hill. A pioneering force for women in the arts and sciences, Nichols gained fame through her authoritative writings on landscape architecture and far-reaching philanthropic projects.

Newcomer Nine Zero marries sleek and shiny steel, chrome, and glass with warm woods and designer furniture for a contemporary look with a soft edge. The Downtown Crossing location is ultra convenient.

Hobnob with Beacon Hill high flyers in this bold bistro over-looking Boston Common, where Mediterranean flavors meet an imaginative wine list.

As Fish Pier’s only restaurant, No Name has an intimate relationship with the fishermen who both sell their catch to, and eat at, this bare-bones restaurant. The very basic menu consists mostly of fried fish. The outstanding chowder is what fishermen call “trim” chowder – full of hunks of whatever has been boned and trimmed that day.

The grand, lavishly appointed Oak Room is known for its unfalteringly tender steaks.

Dating from 1660, the Granary contains the graves of many of Boston’s most illustrious figures, including John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and Paul Revere (see Figures in Boston History) who joined his revolutionary comrades here in 1818. Other notables include the hugely influential architect Charles Bulfinch, Benjamin Franklin’s parents, and Crispus Attucks – an escaped slave who was allegedly the first casualty of the so-dubbed Boston Massacre (see Boston Massacre (1770)). The neatly aligned gravestones bear little relation to actual graves.

An active Episcopal congregation still worships at Boston’s oldest church, officially known as Christ Church (1723). The austere interior looks much as it did in its early days. It was here, in 1775, that sexton Robert Newman hung two lanterns in the belfry to warn horseback messenger Paul Revere of British troop movements (see Paul Revere’s Ride (1775)).

Old South’s rafters have rung with many impassioned speeches exhorting the overthrow of the king, the abolition of slavery, women’s right to vote, an end to apartheid, and many other causes. Nearly abandoned when its congregation moved to Back Bay in 1876, it was saved in one of Boston’s first acts of historic preservation.