Emerald Necklace Conservancy Shattuck Visitor Center 125 Fenway, Boston, MA 02115

"Beautiful & relaxing"

"We're travelers who try to see a new place up close and personal. When we arrived in Boston, we did the Freedom Trail which was a really great way to explore Boston but then we wanted something more. Something a bit more intimate and this was it! First let me say, if you follow the map and hit all the stops, there is no way to do it in 7 miles. I am not even sure where they came up with that number other than maybe driving it without exploring. We walked 12 miles the first day and 11 miles the second day. We broke the chain up by going from the beginning to Jamaica Pond the first day (1-16 from the downloadable map) and then started at Ward Pond the second day and ended in Boston Commons (17-46). The first thing we encountered is that we are terrible map readers and spent too much time with our eyes on the map. SO.. we put each of the stops into Google (after we left one spot we put in the next.) This was a great way to get to the next stop without focusing so much on the map. The only one that seemed messed up was the athletic field (Joseph Lee), Google tried to take us to the wrong one-or maybe it moved because this field did look abandoned. A couple of stops were not found in google so we just dropped a pin by looking at the downloaded map and the google map. The walk was fantastic, we learned so much about the city. The parks aren't completely connected so in-between you walk through beautiful and interesting neighborhoods. I highly recommend doing this (or at least part of it) if you have a bit of time to spend in Boston."

"Fantastic urban design by Frederick Law Olmsted who designed Central Park but his magnum opus was here in greater Boston"