Southern New England lacks the great wilderness areas of its northern neighbors, and is much smaller, but crammed into it are a lot more places to see and things to do. Boston is its gateway and the heart and soul of New England and at various times it has also been known—not immodestly—as the hub of the universe and the Athens of America. In national importance, Boston isn't what it used to be before the great westward migrations, but it remains the best place in the country to get close to early American history. In and around town are such historic shrines as Faneuil Hall, often called "The Cradle of Liberty"; Boston Common, the Park Street Church and King's Chapel, the Granary Burying Ground, the Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere's House and the Old North Church, Bunker Hill and the Boston Navy Yard, where you can still see the U.S.S. Constitution—"Old Ironsides." All except the last two can be covered on a one-and-one-quarter-mile walk along the marked "Freedom Trail" through the heart of the old city. It will take you about two hours. Just across the Charles River is Cambridge, with its own share of history, plus Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and within a short ride are Lexington, Concord and Thoreau's beloved Walden Pond.
Head north out of Boston and you'll drive along the North Shore, a coastline rich in history and recreational facilities. It really begins at Swampscott, about a dozen miles out of Boston. Here is your introduction to all that is typical of the North Shore: expensive summer homes and large resort hotels; comparatively small yet charming beaches; gems of Colonial buildings discovered along narrow, rose-bordered lanes; a long and basically tragic tradition of seafaring men and the loss of so many of them to the angry Atlantic. Next comes Marblehead, where you'll be able to see the original painting of the "Spirit of '76" in the town hall, and which disputes with nearby Beverly the tithe of birthplace of the U.S. Navy; then Salem, where you can see the House of Seven Gables and where—despite anything you might have heard—they never burned a witch. (They hanged them!) Soon you'll reach Gloucester, the famous old fishing village at the beginning of Cape Cod. At the end of Cape Ann is Rockport, another fishing village, and a rival of Provincetown, on Cape Cod, as an art center. Here you'll recognize the fisherman's shack that has been painted and drawn so much it has become known as Motif Number One.
In the opposite direction from Boston is the South Shore leading to Cape Cod. Just before you get to the Cape you'll pass through Plymouth, where the Pilgrims landed, and then through some great cranberry country; then you'll reach Sandwich, famed for its early American glass; next Hyannis, summer home of the Kennedy family. The entire Cape is one great summer resort as you swing north to Provincetown, a booming tourist town, an art colony, a well-preserved Colonial New England sailing town and a present-day commercial fishing center. The two famed and picturesque vacation islands of Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket are reached by ferries from Wood's Hole, on the southwestern tip of the Cape.
Northern Massachusetts shares some scenic mountain country with neighboring New Hampshire and Vermont. It's reachable by car from eastern Massachusetts by the Mohawk Trail which crosses the north-western part of the state from Greenfield to Williamstown, a beautiful little college town near the Vermont and New York lines. This is also the northern end of Massachusetts' Berkshire Hills, which parallel the western edge of the state from Connecticut to Vermont. The renowned Berkshire Music Festival is held during the summer at Tangle wood, near Lenox.
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