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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).

This Fenway museum, in a faux Venetian palace, represents the exquisite personal tastes of its founder, Isabella Stewart Gardner, who was one of the country’s premier art collectors at the end of the 19th century (see Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum).

Built in 1912, the home field of the Boston Red Sox is the oldest surviving park in major league baseball, and aficionados insist that it’s also the finest. An odd-shaped parcel of land gives the intimate park quirky features, such as the high, green-painted wall in left field, affectionately known as “the Green Monster.” Although previous owners threatened to abandon Fenway, the current ones hope to enlarge the park to accommodate the many loyal Sox fans. Behind-the-scenes tours of the park include areas normally closed to the public, like the dugouts and private boxes.

This lush ribbon of grassland, marshes, and stream banks follows Muddy River and forms one link in the Emerald Necklace of parks (see Boston Common & Public Garden). The enclosed James P. Kelleher Rose Garden in the center of the Fens provides a perfect spot for quiet contemplation. A path runs from Kenmore Square to the museums and galleries on Huntington Avenue, which makes a pleasant short cut through the Fens.

Back Bay Fens

The restrained Italian Renaissance exterior of this 1900 concert hall barely hints at the acoustic perfection of the interior hall as designed by Harvard physics professor Walter Clement Sabine. Home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the hall’s 2,361 seats are usually sold out for their extensive season of classical concerts, as well as for the lighter orchestral fare of the Boston Pops (see Symphony Hall).

Largely dominated by Boston University, Kenmore Square is now being transformed from a student ghetto into an extension of upmarket Back Bay, losing some of its funky character but gaining élan in the process. As the public transportation gateway to Fenway Park, the square swarms with baseball fans and sidewalk vendors, rather than students, on game days. The most prominent landmark of the square is the CITGO sign, its 5,878 glass tubes pulsing with red, white, and blue neon from dusk until midnight. Time magazine designated this sign an “objet d’heart” because it was so beloved by Bostonians that they prevented its dismantling in 1983.

Founded as a Methodist Seminary in 1839, BU was chartered as a university in 1869. Today it enrolls approximately 28,000 students from all 50 states and some 125 countries. The scattered colleges and schools were consolidated at the Charles River Campus in 1966. Both sides of Commonwealth Avenue are lined with distinctive university buildings and sculptures. The Special Collections department of the Mugar Memorial Library is big on the memorabilia of show biz figures, displayed on a rotating basis. Artifacts include Gene Kelly’s Oscar and a number of Bette Davis’s film scripts. It also exhibits selections from its holdings of rare manuscripts and books. The Photographic Resource Center, a focus for Boston’s considerable photographic community, frequently mounts challenging exhibitions of local and international photographers.

Mugar Memorial Library, Boston University

The New England Conservatory of Music’s 1,013-seat concert hall opened in 1903 and underwent an $8.2 million restoration in 1995. Musicians frequently praise its acoustics, heralding Jordan “the Stradivarius of concert halls.” Hundreds of free classical concerts are performed at this National Historic Landmark hall every year (see New England Conservatory, Jordan Hall).

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.

Established in 1847 from the private holdings of Dr. John Collins Warren, this museum contains the former anatomical teaching collections of the Harvard Medical School, including clinical examples of rare deformities and diseases. Among the displays are several delicate skeletons of stillborn conjoined twins.