Only in Boston can a family take a walk through the center of the Earth: the Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library is a three-story stained-glass globe from 1935, crossed by a glass bridge that puts children eye-level with the oceans while a sound-and-light show sweeps the continents. Because the world inside is painted as it was in 1935, older kids get a delicious history puzzle – which countries have changed?
The globe’s acoustics are famous: whisper at one end of the bridge and your family hears you at the other. It’s a short, dazzling visit in the Back Bay – part geography lesson, part magic trick, all wonder.
