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The Appalachian Trail, or the A.T. as it is known to hiking cognoscenti, is America’s premier walking path. Snaking through 2,168 miles (3,492 km) of pristine eastern wilderness – including 90 miles (145 km) in Massachusetts – the trail is maintained by members of the club. With a scale model of the trail, informative plaques on the walls, maps, guidebooks, and a knowledgeable staff, this is an essential stop for those planning a hike.

Although it extends well beyond the Fenway, Beacon Street finds its true essence in the section between the Massachusetts State House (see Massachusetts State House) and Charles Street. Here it passes such highlights as the Bull and Finch Pub – of Cheers TV fame – and the Boston Athenaeum, one of the oldest independent libraries in the country.

This synagogue testifies to the area’s former vibrancy as Boston’s first predominantly Jewish quarter. The congregation was founded in 1903 by immigrants from Vilna, Lithuania. While services are no longer held here, there are plans to rededicate the synagogue as a Jewish cultural center.

The massive Cyclorama building is the centerpiece of the BCA, a performing and visual arts complex dedicated to nurturing new talent. The center provides studio space to more than 50 artists, and its Mills Gallery mounts rotating visual arts exhibitions. The BCA’s three theaters host some of the city’s most avant-garde productions of dance, theater, and performance art (see Boston Center for the Arts).

Formerly known as the Old Corner Bookstore, this enduring spot on the Freedom Trail remains one of the most tangible sites associated with the writers of the New England Renaissance of the last half of the 19th century. Both the Atlantic Monthly magazine and Ticknor & Fields (publishers of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau) made this modest structure its headquarters during an age when Boston was the literary, intellectual, and publishing center of the country. The store now features daily papers, books maps, and special editions and reprints of the Boston Globe newspaper.

Although this McKim, Mead, and White-designed building went up in 1895, the Boston Public Library was actually founded in 1848 and is the oldest publiclyfunded library in the country. The interior’s Greco-Roman style cues lavish use of marble, and John Singer Sargent’s powerful “Judaism and Christianity” mural sequence clearly illustrates how highly public education was valued when the library was constructed. Guided tours offer insight into the building’s architecture and history.