Three days in Boston
 

looking for some suggestions for my upcoming driving trip to Boston. Will be traveling with my elderly mother so looking for some day trips to do while in the Boston area.
Any suggestions? I am staying there from August 9-12.

Will be driving from Toronto so any suggestions for stops along the way would be appreciated.
Also some suggestions for great seafood in and around the boston area.
Thanks

Within the city, you will want to leave the car parked and take the excellent bus and subway system, though not all stations have elevators or escalators.

If you are only going to be there for three days (I assume that does not include your arrival and departure days) you will be pressed to fit in an expedition out of the city.

The biggest bang for the buck in going somewhere different and New Englandy would be a drive to Marblehead, Salem, Gloucester, and Essex. All but Salem have excellent seafood.

Salem has the waterfront, a Federal (late Georgian) neighborhood, and the Peabody Essex Museum, a Moshe Safdie building with strong collections in both arts and antiquities. They own three 18th century American houses and a antique Chinese house imported and reconstructed completely. The beest thing about Salem, among the places I have mentioned, is that you don't have to drive there. You can take a high speed ferry, a lovely voyage on a nice day, or take the train from North Station (or one way by each means). Both the ferry and the train are just enough out of the center of things for someone with limited mobility, so I would arrange a taxi from the arrival point to and from the historic district, and the museum is pretty much right at the center. They have excellent food.

In Boston, the Museum of Fine Arts is, of course, world class, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, two blocks away is a unique house museum with a wonderful indoor garden. Food here is also very good.

I don't know your other interests or where you are staying, but Copley Square, the Back Bay, Beacon Hill, and the Public Garden between them are a feast for the eye -- and very Boston.

Highlights from our Boston trip a few summers ago were: wonderful (but slightly pricy) seafood at Neptune Oyster, Old Town Trolly tour (hop on, hop off) which gave us the lay of the land, the JFK Library/Museum and our trip to the lovely town of Gloucester with a stop at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem along the way (awesome museum). It just depends on what your interests are!

I spent 3 days in Boston a few months ago.
Day one: Freedom Trail and the North End,clams and oysters at Legal Seafood.
Day two: Cambridge and Harvard,ferry to USS Constitution,Italian dinner in The North End.
Day three: Fenway Park and Museum of Fine Arts.Dinner on the plane.

Stops along the way:

Niagara Falls

One of the cute towns on the north end of the Finger Lakes (Geneva, Skaneateles, etc.)

If you take Rt 2 along the northern edge of Massachusetts, you can stop in some nice art museums in Williamstown & North Adams.

If you take the southern route (the Interstate/Mass Pike), Stockbridge and Lenox are pleasant to visit. There is a Norman Rockwell museum, for example.

Thanks for all the great information
Sounds like it will be a great trip with lots to see and do!

And I just noticed that Mass MoCA (modern art museum, North Adams) has a big exhibit on Canadian contemporary art.

Some suggested day trips are:

Concord: We caught the train and walked everywhere, but a car would be handy. We visited Orchard House (home of Louisa May Alcott who wrote Little Women), The Old Manse, Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Walden Pond, passed numerous lovely old homes decked out in Fall decor (the one advantage of walking everywhere). We had lunch in a cafe in the main street. You could probably drive to nearby Lexington as well on the same day.

Salem: We caught the train which is about 30 mins, but it is a bit of a walk to the town so a taxi would be a good idea. I found the cemeteries interesting, beautiful archetecture and the House of the Seven Gables is in a perfect spot right on the coast. Plenty of places to eat and lots of "witchy" things to see.

Plymouth Rock and the Plimouth Plantation: south of Boston, I haven't been to either as we didn't have a car, but they're on my to-do list for next time.

We stayed in the Back Bay area, the Boston Public Library is definitely worth a visit. We also joined up on a tour of the Freedom Trail with a costumed guide, who was very knowledgeable and thoroughly entertaining. The tour ended at the Quincy Markets, not far from Little Italy at the North End, where Paul Revere's home is.