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Boston Itineraries
From pre-Revolutionary days, Boston was the region's commercial center, and Cambridge was the 'burbs, more residential than mercantile, with plenty of room to build the nation's first English-style, redbrick university in Harvard Square. Today, Cambridge is a city of great contrasts -- the students and the university own Harvard Square, ethnic enclaves claim Central Square, and the area around Kendall Square, home to MIT, is known as Information Alley and Biotech Central.
Begin your day in Harvard Square, walking down Brattle Street to see the historic homes of Tory Row and looping back to the square, down Massachusetts Avenue through the Cambridge Common, where you can cross through one of the archways into Harvard Yard. (Chances are, you'll recognize it from countless movies about college life. If you can, circle around Sanders Theater, considered either the ugliest or most marvelous building in Cambridge.) Spend some time at a coffeehouse, a shop, or a bookstore in Harvard Square, and then continue down to the banks of the Charles River and stand on the Eliot Bridge, watching the university crew teams practice. It's the best site in Cambridge for a photo op.
If you continue down Memorial Drive (the Cambridge side of the river), you'll arrive at MIT. The contrast between the architectural appearances of Cambridge's two great educational institutions epitomizes today's Boston -- a tug-of-war between the cutting edge and the colonial.
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