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Sights and landmarks in Cambridge

19 sights worth seeing in Cambridge: landmarks, galleries, monuments and viewpoints.

Ranked with the travel guide's picks and well-known places first.

Sights and landmarks in Cambridge

  1. See

    Cooper-Frost-Austin House

    Built in 1681 and owned by the same family for over 250 years. The oldest residence standing in Cambridge. It is open for tours seasonally.

    $10

  2. See

    Harvard Art Museums

    This collection of museums includes three once separate entities. The Fogg Museum, known for western art from the Middle Ages to the present, with particular strengths in Italian early Renaissance, British pre-Raphaelite, and 19th-century French art. The Busch-Reisinger Museum, which is devoted to promoting the informed enjoyment and critical understanding of the arts of Central and Northern Europe, with a special emphasis on the German-speaking countries. Finally, the Arthur M. Sackler Museum holds a superb collection of ancient, Islamic, Asian, and later Indian art.

    10AM-5PM daily$15, seniors $13, students $10, under 18 free

  3. See

    Harvard Bridge

    The bridge connecting Cambridge to Boston across the Charles river. Located at the edge of MIT, not Harvard University. It's well known in the nerdy folklore of MIT: the distance across the bridge is marked in "smoots" (1 smoot = ) after Oliver Smoot, an MIT student who allowed himself to be laid end-to-end to measure the distance across the bridge, as part of a fraternity prank.

  4. See

    Harvard Lampoon building

    Home of the Harvard Lampoon, a student humor publication. The west end of the building, fittingly, resembles a cartoonish face wearing a spiked helmet. The building was finished in 1909.

  5. See

    Harvard Museum of Natural History

    Drawing from the University's vast natural history collections, the HMNH displays the famous Blaschka 'Glass Flowers' collection, dinosaurs (the world's only mounted long Kronosaurus), minerals, meteorites, gemstones (a amethyst geode), and hundreds of 'stuffed' animals and birds. Fun for the whole family. It's an 8-minute walk across the historic Harvard Yard from Harvard Square (Red Line MBTA). Lectures & educational programs for all ages.

    9AM-5PM daily$12, student/senior $10, under 18 $8

  6. See

    Harvard Museum of the Ancient Near East

    formerly Semitic Museum

    See a collection of over 40,000 artifacts from the Near East across multiple ancient civilizations.

    Sun-Fri 11AM-4PMFree

  7. See

    Harvard Yard

    The center and oldest part of the Harvard campus. An enclosed grassy yard including picturesque buildings dating as far back as 1720. While somewhat architecturally uninspiring, the freshman undergraduate dorms are located in Harvard Yard, which means that a long list of famous intellectual and political figures have lived here. Near the center is a statue of John Harvard, for whom the university is named. Tour guides will tell you that students rub the statue's left foot for good luck before exams, and the foot is indeed rubbed shiny. But in reality, most of the rubbing is probably done by tourists rather than students. It is also school tradition of some secret societies at Harvard to pee on the boot of the foot, but this may also be a lie.

  8. See

    Longfellow House–Washington's Headquarters National Historic Site

    Longfellow National Historic Site

    Washington made his headquarters here during the siege of Boston from July 1775 through April 1776. From 1837 until 1882, it was the home of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow while he taught at Harvard. The site's collections deal mainly with Longfellow, but there are some Washington letters as well.

  9. See

    MIT Great Dome

    A monumental dome with an oculus at its center, similar to the Pantheon in Rome. Located in MIT Building 10 (most MIT buildings are referred to by numbers rather than names, as befits the university's technical orientation).

  10. See

    MIT Museum

    Has a huge collection of holography, rotating exhibits, and showcases some of the best "hacks" performed by students. Hacks at MIT are practical physical jokes taking place around the institute. For example: installing a somewhat functioning police car (complete with instructions for how to remove it) atop the great dome. This museum is great for kids and many exhibits are hands-on, including moving sculptures and a shadow room.

    Sep-Jun: 10AM-5PM daily; Jul-Aug: 10AM-6PM dailyAdults $10, youth/students/seniors $5, children under 5 free. Free admission last Sunday of the month Sep-Jun

  11. See

    Mount Auburn Cemetery

    Yes, it's a cemetery. It just happens to be the first landscaped cemetery and in fact the first large-scale designed landscape in the U.S. The tower provides visitors with a breathtaking panoramic view of the cities of Boston and Cambridge, as well as the surrounding countryside to the north. The fact that it's the final resting place of some of the area's most influential figures (Sumner, Gardner, Eddy, and Longfellow) cements its status as a National Historic Landmark.

    Free

  12. See

    Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology

    One of the oldest museums in the world devoted to anthropology, it houses one of the most comprehensive records of human cultural history in the Western Hemisphere.

    9AM-5PM daily$12, students/seniors $10, under 18 $8

  13. See

    Putnam Gallery

    The Collection of Historical Scientific Instruments

    Representing a broad range of scientific studies, this museum holds over 20,000 unique instruments dating from 1400 to present day.

    Sun-Fri 11AM-4PMFree

  14. See

    Stata Center

    Likely the most striking building on MIT's campus, built in 2004 in a very modern architectural form. Contains a small branch of the MIT Museum (see below).

  15. See

    Washington Elm

    On July 3, 1775, George Washington officially took command of the Continental Army at ceremonies taking place beneath this Elm tree, which stood at the edge of the training grounds used by the troops. While this tale may be a myth, clearly the tree has remained a symbol of patriotism in Cambridge for generations. The tree finally succumbed to old age and disease in 1923, and today a small bronze plaque marks this historical spot.

    24 hours dailyFree

  16. See Not mapped

    African American Heritage Trail

    Twenty historic plaques across the city honor notable African Americans who were abolitionists, authors, educators, and office holders in Cambridge from 1840 to 1940.

    24 hours dailyFree

  17. See

    Cambridge Arts Council Gallery

    344 Broadway

    Mon 8:30AM-8PM, Tue-Thu 8:30AM-5PM, Fri 8:30AM-noonFree

  18. See

    Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

    24 Quincy St

    Free

  19. See

    List Visual Arts Center

    20 Ames St

    Free

Listings from the Wikivoyage guide to Cambridge (CC BY-SA 4.0).