Boston has grown up around Boston Common , which was set aside as public land in 1634. The obvious first stop on any tour of the city, it is also one of the gems in the string of nine parks (six of which were designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, America's foremost landscape architect) known as Boston's Emerald Necklace . Another gem is the lovely Public Garden , across Charles Street, where the two-ton swan boats ($1.50), which paddle across the main pond, are a less-than-natural, though whimsical, focal point.

The visitor center - the start of the Freedom Trail - is near the tapering north end of the Common. As you stand here, facing up Tremont Street with the State House away to your left, the main shopping district, Quincy Market , and the waterfront are slightly ahead and down to the right. The modern concrete wasteland of Government Center is straight up Tremont Street, with the North End beyond - first Irish, then Jewish, and now very definitely Italian. A short way behind you on the left rises Beacon Hill , every bit as elegant as when Henry James called Mount Vernon Street "the most prestigious address in America" (and far removed from its eighteenth-century nickname of "Mount Whoredom"). Heading away from the center down Tremont Street brings you to Chinatown and the Theater District , while grand boulevards such as Commonwealth Avenue lead west from the Public Garden into the Back Bay , where Harvard Bridge runs across the Charles River into Cambridge .