Boston · Self-guided audio walk

Fenway Ballpark and Museum Walk

From the Green Monster to a Venetian palace, this walk links Boston's ballpark heart with two of its great museums.

5Stops
2.1 kmDistance
35+ minTime

Photo by King of Hearts on Wikimedia Commons

This walk starts under the sixty foot Citgo sign in Kenmore Square, then follows the street to Fenway Park, the oldest Major League ballpark still in use. You will stand beside the Green Monster on Lansdowne Street and learn why that wall exists. The route then cuts through the Back Bay Fens, the first piece of Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, with its victory gardens and rose garden. It ends on Huntington Avenue at the Museum of Fine Arts and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a Venetian style palace built around a flowering courtyard and opened in 1903. Allow about two hours for the walk, and longer if you go inside either museum.

Hear it on the street

Get the turn-by-turn audio guide in the app. The narration plays itself as you reach each stop, hands-free and offline.

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Stop by stop

The route

Interactive map of the route. The full stop list below works without it.

Must see

Photo by Henry Han on Wikimedia Commons

Kenmore Square

0:00

A busy crossroads under the sixty foot Citgo sign, a glow Red Sox fans and marathon runners know well.

You're standing in Kenmore Square, where Beacon Street, Commonwealth Avenue, and Brookline Avenue meet under the Green Line tracks. Look up at the roof of 660 Beacon Street. That is the Citgo sign, sixty feet on each side, and it has been here in some form since 1940, when Cities Service first hung a neon sign over its regional office. The trimark you see went up in 1965, with three shades of red stacked to look three dimensional.

For years people argued over whether the sign was an eyesore. In 1979 the governor had it switched off to save energy, and in 1982 the company planned to take it down. The public outcry stopped the demolition, and on August tenth, 1983, a crowd filled this square to watch the sign come back on while a speaker blasted You Light Up My Life. Now it glows from dusk to midnight.

Red Sox fans watch it loom behind left field on television, and Boston Marathon runners use it as the last big marker before the finish. When a home run clears the Green Monster, old fans still say see it go.

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≈5 min walk to the next stop

Must see

Photo by Farragutful on Wikimedia Commons

Fenway Park

0:00

The oldest Major League ballpark still in use, opened in 1912, with the Green Monster rising over Lansdowne Street.

You're looking at Fenway Park, the oldest ballpark still used by Major League Baseball. It opened on April twentieth, 1912, when the Red Sox beat the New York Highlanders seven to six, and it cost about six hundred fifty thousand dollars to build. The wall in front of you is the Green Monster, thirty seven feet two inches tall and two hundred thirty one feet across, just three hundred ten feet from home plate. The wall began as a plain wooden fence, built to stop people in the buildings along Lansdowne Street from watching games for free.

For years it carried advertisements. In 1947 it was painted the same green as the rest of the park, and the name stuck. Look for the hand operated scoreboard set into the wall; it has been there in some form since 1914. The Monster seats were added on top in 2003.

Step back and notice how the park is jammed into its city block, its shape bent to fit the streets around it. That squeeze is why left field ends so close, and why one fly ball here can change a game.

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≈10 min walk to the next stop

Must see

Photo by King of Hearts on Wikimedia Commons

Back Bay Fens

0:00

The first piece of Olmsted's Emerald Necklace, a reclaimed marsh turned into gardens, ball fields, and bird habitat.

You're in the Back Bay Fens, the oldest part of Frederick Law Olmsted's Emerald Necklace. Olmsted took on this ground in 1878, when it was a tidal marsh so foul that newspapers called it the worst mud flats in Massachusetts. His first job was engineering, not scenery. He designed a storage basin for Stony Brook's floodwater and turned the marsh into a winding saltwater creek with wooded banks.

The Charles River was dammed in 1910, the water turned fresh, and much of Olmsted's planting had to change. The park you see today leans more formal, with ball fields and the Kelleher Rose Garden added in the nineteen twenties and thirties. On the west side, the Victory Gardens have been worked since 1942. They are the last continuously operating World War Two victory gardens in the country, seven and a half acres with more than five hundred plots.

Walk slowly and listen for birds. This is also where Boston's institutions pressed in around the park, and the two museums at the end of this walk sit right on its edge.

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≈6 min walk to the next stop

Free preview ends here · stops 4 to 5 continue in the app

Museum of Fine Arts

Boston's great art museum on Huntington Avenue, open here since 1909 and holding more than four hundred fifty thousand works.

in app

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

A Venetian style palace built around a flowering courtyard, opened in 1903 by Isabella Stewart Gardner.

in app

Good to know

Before you go

How much is a Fenway Park tour?

The standard one-hour guided tour is $30 for adults and $21 for children ages 3 to 12. Public tours depart at the top of every hour, and game days cut the last tour to three hours before first pitch.

SourceBoston Red Sox

How much is the Museum of Fine Arts?

$30 for adults, $14 for youths 7 to 17, and free for children 6 and under. The museum is open late on Thursday and Friday evenings.

SourceMuseum of Fine Arts

How much is the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum?

$25 for adults and free for visitors 17 and under. It sits right next to the Museum of Fine Arts, and the flowering courtyard is part of the collection.

SourceIsabella Stewart Gardner Museum

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Provenance · last verified August 20, 2026

Built from the Wayside route itself: the stops, their order, and the walk between them.

Photo by King of Hearts on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by Henry Han on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Farragutful on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by King of Hearts on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

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Photo by Arturoramos on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

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Photo by Jon Platek on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 3.0

Photo by Eganjm18 on Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Photo by Matt Collamer on Unsplash