Explore Boston - CAMBRIDGE

The excursion across the Charles River to Cambridge merits at least half a day, starting with a fifteen-minute ride on the Red "T" line from Park Street to Harvard Square . This is not so much a square as a number of interlocking streets, filled with small shopping malls and bookstores, at the point where Massachusetts Avenue runs into JFK and Brattle streets. It's an exceptionally lively area, filled with students from nearby Harvard University and MIT; the café terrace at Au Bon Pain makes for enjoyable people-watching, and in summer street musicians are a common sight. The Cambridge Visitor Information Booth here (Mon-Sat 9am-5pm; tel 617/497-1630) sporadically organizes walking tours in summer, and sells local maps and guides. More thorough information is available from the Harvard Events & Information Center , Holyoke Center, 1350 Massachusetts Ave (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm; tel 617/495-1573, ), which also arranges student-led tours.

Feel free to wander into Harvard Yard and around the core of the university, founded in 1636; its enormous Widener Library (named for a victim of the Titanic ) boasts a Gutenberg Bible and a first folio of Shakespeare. Five minutes' walk west along Brattle Street is the imposing yellow-fronted mansion at no. 105, known as Longfellow House , after the author of Hiawatha , who lived here until 1882. A century earlier it was briefly the headquarters of General George Washington. The site has been undergoing extensive renovation. Call 617/876-4491 or visit to check hours and admission fee. Dexter Pratt, immortalized in Longfellow's Under the spreading chestnut tree, the village smithy stands , lived at 56 Brattle St, now a popular bakery and café.

Cambridge has several first-class art museums on offer, along with more specialized science museums with a few engaging exhibits of note. The Harvard University Art Museums (Mon-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; $5, free on Wed; tel 617/495-9400) encompasses over 150,000 works of art across three museums. Highlights of Harvard's substantial collection of Western art are showcased in the Fogg Art Museum , at 32 Quincy St, while the Busch-Reisinger Museum on the second floor has a small but excellent selection focusing on German Expressionists and the work of the Bauhaus. Just steps away at 485 Broadway, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum is devoted to classical, Asian and Islamic art. The Harvard Museum of Natural History , at 26 Oxford St (daily 9am-5pm; $6.50), operates three museums devoted to botany, zoology, and minerals and geology respectively.

A couple of miles southeast of Harvard Square is the Massuchusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), whose List Visual Arts Center , 20 Ames St (Tues-Thurs, Sat & Sun noon-6pm, Fri noon-8pm; tel 617/253-4680), exhibits contemporary art in all media, including photography and video, and often has accompanying lectures.