Boston Public Garden

The Boston Public Garden is the first public botanical garden in America — created in 1837 on land that was tidal marsh until the 1830s, and now a 24-acre Victorian garden that sits next to Boston Common but feels like an entirely different world. Where the Common is a democratic scrum of joggers, tourists, and buskers, the Public Garden is a manicured landscape of flower beds, weeping willows, and a serpentine lagoon crossed by the world's smallest suspension bridge.

The Swan Boats are the Public Garden's signature — pedal-powered pontoons shaped like swans that have been carrying passengers around the lagoon since 1877, making them the oldest concession in the park. The ride takes about 15 minutes and costs a few dollars, which buys you a slow circuit of the lagoon past the bronze 'Make Way for Ducklings' statues — eight ducklings following their mother in a scene from Robert McCloskey's beloved children's book, installed in 1987 and now among the most photographed sculptures in Boston.

The garden's botanical collection is genuine — the beds are planted with over 80 species that change seasonally, and the tulip display in May is one of the most photographed spring scenes in New England. The trees include a mix of native species and exotics, and several are old enough to have shaded Civil War veterans sitting on the same benches that visitors use today. The equestrian statue of George Washington at the Arlington Street entrance is the largest bronze casting made in America when it was completed in 1869.