Boston

Boston has sand within easy reach but little beach life. Revere Beach, the oldest public beach in the country, is a few stops out on the Blue Line, and the city has small harbour beaches in South Boston and Dorchester where locals cool off. The better beaches are on the North Shore. Crane Beach in Ipswich has a long stretch of dunes, and Singing Beach in Manchester-by-the-Sea is a commuter-rail ride away.

The Atlantic here is cold. In August the water reaches about 19°C to 21°C at best, and for most of the year it is far colder. Swimming is a summer treat on a hot day rather than the point of the trip. The warmer, sandier beaches of Cape Cod are well over an hour away.

Boston eats best from the sea. The local repertoire is oysters from Duxbury and Wellfleet, steamed clams, fried whole-belly clams, lobster rolls, chowder and baked scrod, served everywhere from harbourside shacks to raw bars in the Seaport. The North End is the old Italian quarter, with red-sauce dining rooms, pastry shops famous for cannoli and espresso bars. Chinatown is small but busy and good for late noodles and dim sum.

Cambridge and the South End have the most ambitious restaurants, mostly chef-led American cooking built on New England produce. Craft beer is strong across the city. The scene is deeper than its size suggests, but outside seafood there is not much that is distinctly local, and eating out is expensive at every level.

No American city keeps its colonial and Revolutionary past closer at hand. The Freedom Trail runs from Boston Common past the Old State House, Faneuil Hall, Paul Revere's House and the Old North Church to the USS Constitution in Charlestown. Beacon Hill's brick rowhouses and gas lamps and Back Bay's Victorian brownstones make up some of the best-preserved nineteenth-century streetscapes in the country. Copley Square adds Trinity Church and the palatial Boston Public Library.

The Museum of Fine Arts is one of the great encyclopaedic museums in the country, with strong Egyptian, Japanese and American collections. The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a Venetian-style palazzo kept exactly as its founder arranged it, is unique. Across the river, Harvard's museums and campus and MIT add a few more days.

Going out in Boston revolves around the bar. There are Irish pubs around Faneuil Hall and in South Boston, sports bars that fill up around Fenway Park on game nights, cocktail lounges in the South End and the Seaport, and student-heavy bars in Allston and around the Cambridge squares. The large university population keeps weeknights livelier than you might expect.

Nights end early, though. Bars close by 2am, the subway stops running shortly after midnight, and the few clubs near the Theater District are modest. It is a good city for a long evening in a pub. Anyone looking for nights that run until dawn will find little.

Boston's outdoors is green and coastal rather than dramatic. The Emerald Necklace, a chain of parks designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, links the Common and Public Garden to the Arnold Arboretum and Franklin Park. The Charles River Esplanade is the city's place to run, cycle and sail, and you can rent kayaks and paddleboards on the river. In summer, ferries cross to the Boston Harbor Islands for trails, forts and picnic spots.

Whale-watching boats leave the waterfront for Stellwagen Bank, one of the best places on the Atlantic coast to see humpbacks. The rocky shore of Cape Ann, the woods of the Blue Hills and Middlesex Fells, and Walden Pond are all within an hour. Autumn foliage is the highlight of the year. For real mountains you have to go north to New Hampshire.

Old New England towns lie in every direction. Salem, with its witch-trial history and the Peabody Essex Museum, is half an hour away by train. Lexington and Concord pair the first battlefields of the Revolution with the houses of Emerson, Thoreau and Louisa May Alcott. Plymouth has the Mayflower story and a re-created Pilgrim village, and Marblehead, Rockport and Gloucester are old fishing and sailing towns on the North Shore.

About an hour and a half south, Newport has Gilded Age mansions on the cliffs, and Providence has a handsome historic hill and college town along the way. Old Sturbridge Village, Portsmouth in New Hampshire and the towns of Cape Cod round out a long and varied list. A car makes most of these easier, though Salem and Concord are well served by commuter rail.

Boston works well with children. The New England Aquarium on the waterfront, the Museum of Science on the Charles and the Boston Children's Museum are all major institutions built for young visitors, and the Franklin Park Zoo is close by. The Public Garden has the swan boats and the bronze ducklings from the classic picture book. Re-enactors on the Freedom Trail, the decks of the USS Constitution and a whale-watching trip make history and nature easy for children to enjoy.

The centre is compact, safe and largely flat, and the Common has a paddling pool and playgrounds. Older children often love a game at Fenway Park. The drawbacks are a cold, snowy winter and the lack of a big theme park nearby.

Boston is one of the most walkable cities in the country. Downtown, the North End, Beacon Hill, Back Bay and the waterfront sit close together and are best covered on foot, and the Freedom Trail is a walking route by design. The T, the oldest subway in the United States, links the centre with Cambridge, Fenway, the airport and Revere Beach, and harbour ferries run to Charlestown and the islands.

The network is ageing. Some lines are slow, the Green Line trams crawl through surface stretches, and service stops around midnight. The old street pattern confuses drivers, and parking is scarce and expensive, so a car is a burden in the city and only useful for trips out of town.

Newbury Street is the main shopping street, running through Back Bay with eight blocks of brownstones filled with fashion flagships, independent boutiques and galleries. Nearby, the Copley Place and Prudential Center malls cover the department stores and luxury labels, and Charles Street on Beacon Hill has antiques and small gift shops.

Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market are historic halls, but the shopping there is mostly souvenirs. Harvard Square has bookshops and student-oriented independents, and the SoWa open market in the South End brings out local makers on summer weekends. Clothing is exempt from sales tax up to a set amount, which helps a little. Otherwise the range is solid but not a reason to visit.

Boston is an expensive city to visit. Hotel rooms are among the costliest in the country, and prices peak in the autumn foliage season and around university graduations in late spring. Restaurant meals, drinks and even casual seafood cost well above the national average, and tipping adds to every bill.

There is some relief. The subway is fairly priced, the Freedom Trail and the parks are free, and the compact centre means you can do without taxis. Staying across the river or out along a subway line cuts the cost of a room, but there is no cheap way to see the city.

Classical music is where Boston stands out. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, one of the great American orchestras, plays a full season in Symphony Hall, whose acoustics are counted among the finest in the world. The Boston Pops take over in late spring and play their famous Fourth of July concert on the Esplanade. The Handel and Haydn Society, one of the oldest performing groups in the country, specialises in early music. Boston Ballet performs at the grand Citizens Bank Opera House.

The Theater District hosts touring Broadway shows. The Huntington and the American Repertory Theater in Cambridge stage serious drama, and premieres from the A.R.T. often go on to New York. Students from Berklee and the New England Conservatory fill small jazz rooms and many free concerts. Opera is the one modest part of the scene.

Boston has no bathing tradition. Relaxation here means a hotel spa or day spa in Back Bay, or a slow afternoon off. The Public Garden, the shaded Esplanade along the Charles and the Arnold Arboretum are pleasant places to slow down, and Beacon Hill is quiet once the day-trippers leave.

The city itself is brisk and purposeful, shaped by universities, hospitals and finance. Visitors who want a properly restful break usually head out of town to an inn on Cape Ann or Cape Cod.