Since Boston's most popular attraction opened in 1976, cities all over the country have imitated the "festival market" concept. Each new complex of shops, food counters, restaurants, bars, and public spaces in urban centers reflects its city. Faneuil Hall Marketplace, brimming with Boston flavor (and national chain outlets), is no exception. Its success with tourists and suburbanites is so great, in fact, that you could be forgiven for thinking that the only Bostonians in the crowd are employees.

The marketplace includes five buildings -- the central three-building complex is on the National Register of Historic Places -- set on brick and stone plazas that teem with crowds shopping, eating, performing, watching performers, and just people-watching. In warm weather, it's busy from just after dawn until well past dark. Quincy Market (you'll also hear the whole complex called by that name) is the central three-level Greek revival-style building. It reopened after extensive renovations on August 26, 1976, 150 years of hard use after Mayor Josiah Quincy opened the original market. The South Market building reopened on August 26, 1977, the North Market building on August 26, 1978.

The central corridor of Quincy Market is the food court, where you can find anything from a bagel to a full Greek dinner, a fruit smoothie to an ice cream sundae. On either side, under the glass canopies, there are full-service restaurants as well as pushcarts that hold everything from crafts created by New England artisans to hokey souvenirs. Here you'll also see a new bar that exactly replicates the set of the TV show Cheers. In the plaza between the South Canopy and the South Market building is an information kiosk, and throughout the complex you'll find an enticing mix of chain stores and unique shops. On warm evenings, the tables that spill outdoors from the restaurants and bars fill with people. One constant since the year after the market -- the original market -- opened is Durgin-Park, a traditional New England restaurant with traditionally crabby waitresses.

Faneuil Hall itself sometimes gets overlooked, but it's well worth a visit. Known as the "Cradle of Liberty" for its role as a center of inspirational (some might say inflammatory) speech in the years leading to the Revolutionary War, the building opened in 1742 and was expanded using a Charles Bulfinch design in 1805. National Park Service rangers give free 20-minute talks every half-hour from 9am to 5pm in the second-floor auditorium.