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The aquarium goes to great lengths to keep kids engaged through a variety of interactive displays. Nothing illustrates this better than the Edge of the Sea exhibit, where children can touch some of the region’s typical tidepool dwellers. (see New England Aquarium)

Now the centerpiece of the downtown waterfront development, the aquarium’s construction in the 1960s paved the way for the revitalization of Boston Harbor. Seals cavort in a tank in front of the sleek modern structure (see New England Aquarium).

In the lobby of the New England Financial building, a series of eight murals depicts scenes from Boston’s most formative moments. Mounted in 1942 by a Beaux Arts star pupil, Charles Hoffbauer, the series commemorates events such as the pilgrims’ welcome by the Samoset Indians in 1621 and the 1797 launching of the USS Constitution (see USS Constitution).

Over the years, Back Bay’s most famous street has proven to be amazingly adaptable. How else could fashion boutiques as au courant as Diesel and DKNY blend so seamlessly into their 140-year-old brownstone environs? This uncanny adaptability provides for the liveliest, most eclectic street scene in Boston: a babble of languages, skater punks walking alongside catwalk models, and delivery trucks and Ferraris jockeying for the same parking space – it’s all here (see Around Newbury Street).

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.

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.

Built in 1713 as the seat of colonial government, the Old State House was designed to look down State Street to the shipping hub of Long Wharf. In 1770, the Boston Massacre (see Boston Massacre (1770)) occurred just outside its doors. And on July 4, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was first read to Bostonians from its balcony (see The Freedom Trail). Today, it’s home to the Bostonian Society & Old State House Museum.