Are you looking for things to do in Boston Back Bay? Our tourist scavenger hunt through the Back Bay neighborhood will take you from the Boston Commons to Copley Square via Trinity Church, Boston Public Library and Gibson House Museum!
You will have to solve challenges at every step to discover your next destination. At each step, you will learn a little history as well as interesting facts about what is around you.
Boston is the capital of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, and the largest city in this eastern state of the United States. Its own population is less than 700,000, but its metropolitan area exceeded 4.5 million in 2017.
- Boston Common
- Boston Public Garden
- Gibson House Museum
- Hatch Memorial Shell
- Trinity Church Boston
- Old South Church
- Commonwealth Avenue
- Boston Vendome Hotel Fire Memorial
- Victorian brownstones
- Louisburg Square
- And much more!
Indeed, we have visited Boston several times since 2010 including this neighborhood.
- Starting Point: outside the Boston Common garage at 0 Charles St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
- Distance: 3.7 km / 2.3 mi
- Duration: 3 hours
- Methode: walking
- Required:
- A fully charged smartphone with a data plan (WiFi is not enough)
- Suggested:
- Bottled water
- A local road or tourist map
Ancient History
The first Europeans named this region Trimoutaine for its 3 mountains. They’ve now mostly been leveled to hills. It was renamed Boston in 1630, in honor of Boston in Lincolnshire, England, from where came many of the wealthiest early settlers.
This peninsula is thought to have been inhabited since 5000 BC.
Puritans have strongly influenced the education and ethics of the early city. The first public school in America was founded in Boston in 1635.
Its citizens participated in 4 wars (for the English) against France and the natives (American Indians) until Britain ejected them permanently from North America.
Boston was the largest city in British America until Philadelphia overtook it in the mid-18th century. Its proximity to the ocean has kept its port and shipping very active from its earliest days.
Many of the milestones of the American Revolution happened around Boston. The protests spurred by British laws and the measures to apply these laws led to the Boston Tea Party, then to the American Revolution. Boston was besieged between 1775 and 1776.
History of Back Bay
Back Bay was literally a bay in the Charles River to the north before 1857. This is when the area started to be filled with gravel and other things. For a time, 25 trains of 35 cars, every 24 hours, dumped landfill here to create this neighborhood. Completion occurred in 1882.
Back Bay was designed according to the Haussmann model. Haussmann designed many of the major arteries in Paris. There is, therefore, the very wide Commonwealth Avenue in the center and quadrilateral streets on the left and right of it. There are very few angled streets in Back Bay.
