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Lowell was the cradle of the US’s Industrial Revolution, where entrepreneurs dug power canals and built America’s first textile mills on the Merrimack River. The sites within the National Historical Park (246 Market St) tell the parallel stories of a wrenching transformation from agricultural to industrial lifestyle, and the rise of the American labor movement. A 1920s weave room still thunders away at Boott Cotton Mills Museum (400 John St).

The Huntington and Bakalar galleries in the South Building of the Massachusetts College of Art mount some of Boston’s most dynamic exhibitions of contemporary visual art. It is the only independent state-supported art college in the US and exhibitions tend to emphasize avant-garde experimentation as well as social commentary and documentary.

A 200-year-old codfish, a statue memorializing a licentious Civil War General, and a 23-carat gold dome crowned with a pine cone – such are the curious eccentricities that distinguish Beacon Hill’s most prestigious address (see Massachusetts State House).

Based in the African Meeting House (the oldest extant black church in the US) and the adjoining Abiel Smith School (the nation’s first publicly funded grammar school for African-American children) – the MAAH offers a look into the daily life of free, pre-Civil War African-Americans. The meeting house was a political and religious center for Boston’s African-American community and it was here that abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison delivered anti-slavery addresses in the mid-19th century. The museum has successfully preserved their legacy and that of countless others through education workshops, exhibitions, and special events.

One of the most comprehensive fine arts museums in the country, the MFA is especially renowned for its collections of French Impressionism and of ancient Egyptian and Nubian art and artifacts. Its Asian art holdings are said to be the largest in the US (see Museum of Fine Arts).

Hands-on learning exhibits, like developing animated fish in the Virtual FishTank and racing marbles on sloping tracks, teach children about the physical world. The Omni Theater thrills with its fast-paced IMAX projections. And the planetarium places the cosmos within even the smallest child’s reach.

Exploring the cosmos in the Hayden Planetarium, hitting the high notes on a musical staircase, experiencing larger-than-life IMAX films in the Mugar Omni Theater – the Museum of Science knows how to make learning enjoyable. In addition to these attractions, the museum frequently hosts blockbuster touring exhibits like Alice the Tyrannosaurus Rex . And on Friday nights, staff lead free star gazing sessions on the museum roof.

During the 19th century, local sailors and whalers plundered the oceans of the world, enriching the port of New Bedford. The National Historic District preserves many of the fine buildings of the whaling era, while the Whaling Museum (18 Johnny Cake Hill) gives riveting accounts of the enterprise.