host whale-watching day cruises from April-October, so you don’t have to travel as far as Hawaii or Alaska to see humpback, finback, minke, right, pilot, sperm, beluga, sei and blue whales. Whichever sport you prefer, Boston has a team to support. Saints fans can still celebrate the Patriots’ Super Bowl win or try a new sport with a Bruins hockey game. Visit TD Garden and see the Celtics dribble on their famous oak parquet floor. Arguably the most popular team in Boston is the Red Sox, with an iconic stadium to match. Fenway was built in 1912 and is a city landmark in itself. The team mascot, Wally the Green Monster, gets his name from the 37-foot tall wall in left field that makes Fenway home runs notoriously difficult. The wall was painted green in 1947 and came to be known as “the Green Monster.” Tours run every day on the hour, but if you’re looking to get in while the stadium is full, visit during baseball season, which runs April-October. Nearby, but with a different vibe, lies the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Gardner was a wealthy art enthusiast who built the museum in the style of the Palazzo Barbaro in Venice to house her Italian art collection. Gardner moved into the fourth floor once the building was completed in 1902 and decorated the building the way she thought a museum should look: museum-quality furniture to sit on while enjoying the art from a multitude of genres. Unlike in most museums, some rooms here are covered floor to ceiling with works, making the immense building seem home-y. A glass-ceilinged courtyard, tropical no matter the weather outside, forms the heart of the museum. Heading southwest, away from the ocean, you’ll hit the hip, young area of Jamaica Plain (say JP to sound like a local). And a hip, young activity there is a tour of the Sam Adams Brewery.
For more information: boston.gov
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The touring facility is the smallest branch of three in the U.S. and is where new brews are tested. Sample a beer in your keepsake glass on the free tour. However, most of the activity in JP is on Centre Street in its cafes, shops and restaurants. Feel free to bring along your dog, as some shops welcome dogs and even have treats. If you forget water for your furry friend, the Fire House always has filled water bowls outside, and when not putting out fires, the fire fighters sit outside on nice days with treats for passing pups. Nearby in the Back Bay neighborhood is something you’re sure not to see anywhere else, a three story high 1930’s model of Earth made of stained glass you can stand inside. The mapparium gets its name from Latin mappa, meaning map, and arium, “a place for.” It opened in 1935 and the glass panels were intended to be replaced each year as country borders and names changed, but that went out the window with World War II. The architect decided to leave the mapparium panels frozen in time, once country borders and names began to change too fast to keep up with. Imagine being the size of a doll and standing inside the globes you see on library tables. Here you can stand on a walkway in the middle of the globe and see the oceans and continents around you. West and slightly north of the city is the most famous town near Boston, Cambridge. Although residents will say it has a lot to offer besides the famous school, Harvard is the main tourist attraction in the area. Founded in 1636 with just nine pupils and a schoolmaster, it is now world-renowned. As some international students’ t-shirts for the annual Harvard-Yale rivalry football game say, “In my country no one has heard of Yale.”
