Cambridge & Harvard Square Boston: The Complete Visitor Guide

Cambridge sits across the Charles River from Boston proper — technically a separate city, but connected so intimately by the T (Red Line, Harvard Square stop) that the distinction is mostly administrative. It's one of the most intellectually concentrated square miles on earth: Harvard University, MIT, and dozens of research institutions create an environment where the bookshops are extraordinary, the coffee is taken seriously, and conversations overhead at adjacent tables are frequently about things you don't fully understand.

Harvard Square is the neighbourhood's commercial centre: a T stop surrounded by bookshops (Harvard Book Store, the independent on Mass Ave, has a genuinely excellent used section in the basement), cafes, restaurants, and the entrance to Harvard Yard itself. The Yard is open to the public; walking through the freshman dormitories, past the John Harvard statue (his left foot perpetually polished by tourists rubbing it for luck despite the fact that it's not actually John Harvard), and into the older academic quadrangles gives a sense of the institution's material confidence without requiring any enrollment paperwork.

The Harvard Art Museums (Fogg, Busch-Reisinger, Arthur M. Sackler — now combined under one roof) have an exceptional collection: strong on German Expressionism, Medieval European, and East Asian objects. The Natural History Museum adjacent has the famous Glass Flowers — 3,000 botanically accurate glass models of plants — which are among the most astonishing objects in any museum anywhere.

MIT is a 20-minute walk east along Massachusetts Avenue: the buildings are less traditionally picturesque but architecturally wilder (Gehry's Stata Center, Saarinen's Kresge Auditorium). The MIT Museum has the Holography collection and rotating exhibits on science and technology. Cambridge's restaurant scene runs along Massachusetts Avenue and around Inman Square: excellent and diverse without the tourist premium of the Boston waterfront.