Passed by this place every day for YEARS and always wondered what it actually was LOL. One day my…read moremom and I finally decided to stop by, and it was actually really cool! The entrance is free, it's a short walk, and we love a good free activity! We took some nice photos, walked around, and learned about the history of the iron works. It was a nice little outing without having to spend anything. They also have events here sometimes. I've driven by while they've had concerts and even a movie night, which I thought was pretty cool. There's also a parking lot, so it's convenient to get to. Definitely a great place to check out if you're ever around Saugus and looking for something free and easy to do!

Beautiful park full of history and stories shared by some very knowledgeable Rangers. Easy parking…read moreand free entrance makes this a must stop when visiting the area. Highly recommend a tour of the house with Ranger Paul (hope I got the name right), he was very knowledgeable and presented it so that even our 14 year old Grandaughter was interested

My mom and I toured the House of the Seven Gables when we spent a day in Salem a week or so ago,…read moreand it was one of the highlights of our time in Salem. The house dates back to 1668, when it was built for a wealthy sea captain and merchant. It remained in that family for three generations before it was bought by another family. The house is mostly famous for being the setting and subject of a novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, who was a second cousin of Susannah Ingersoll, who lived in the home for years. In 1908, the home was purchased again, this time by a woman who made it her life's mission to restore the house, protect it for posterity, and to turn into a museum that could be visited by tourists to Salem. The home was renovated many times (by different owners of the house) - it didn't even always have seven gables, but that's a part of its interesting story! We learned all of the above and more from our tour guide on a guided tour of the house. Our tour guide was great - friendly, informative, and interesting! After our tour, we explored Nathaniel Hawthorne's birthplace home, which was moved to the grounds of the House of Seven Gables to avoid demolition. It was a great way to learn a little more about Hawthorne. There was also a gift shop, where my mom and I both bought copies of The House of the Seven Gables, stamped so we always remember where we bought it. Our tour was interesting, and the house is striking and fascinating. It's well worth a visit if you're exploring Salem.

Excellent site to visit! Beautiful views! We had a great docent lead tour. Our guide shared lots…read moreof details and did a great job trying to answer our group's many questions! Learning about the different architectural phases of this property was very interesting. The Secret Staircase is special! Gift Shop was a fun stop! Friendly staff. They have their own parking lot with ample and FREE parking while you visit. Now that's a plus. Everywhere else in Salem is paid parking, including the Peabody Essex Museum (park and hike!) Highly recommend visiting The House of Seven Gables if you are in the area.

I don't want to Salem short because this is a gorgeous building, so I'm gonna give 5 stars…read more This beautiful Old Town Hall in Salem has a bunch of costume people coming out of it around Halloween and it's really fun to watch. It's amazing even without that added bonus, but at that time of year it's great. It's a good place to get your picture taken and if you're a witch you should probably stay away from here because the witches were hung around here bro.

We came in to kill some time while we waited for our table to open up at a nearby restaurant…read more For three dollars, you get to see informational banners in a small room, lol. Nothing exciting, nothing fun.The best part of the museum is that you get access to use their downstairs bathroom throughout the day, if needed. Definitely not a place you want to come, unless you were in a situation like ours and just need to kill 10 minutes (if that).

A lovely museum with the right volume and diversity of things and experiences! I loved how there…read morewas art, artifacts, furniture, and small bits of information you could walk away with. The trouble with museums is that the amount of information can be overwhelming, that you skip over the signs because there are too many. There are plenty of items to look at here, but it didn't feel too overwhelming to get a feel within a few hours. Make sure to book your tickets online to get a time for the Chinese house. I've never walked in something so old. It was interesting to see the construction and walk through it.

I visited the Peabody Essex Museum (PEM) with my mom at the end of our day in Salem about a week or…read moreso ago, and we really enjoyed our visit. The museum has an extensive collection of Asian Art, but it holds more than 800,000 works of historical and cultural arts covering maritime, American, Asia, and Oceanic and African art. The highlight of our visit was visiting the Yin Yu Tang House. The house dates back to the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911). Huang, a prosperous merchant, built this stately 16-bedroom, two story-house with a courtyard and called it "Yin Yu Tang," meaning "Hall of Plentiful Shelter." It was home to the Huang family in the Huizhou region for more than 200 years until the last of the family descendants moved from the village in 1982. In the 1990s, as part of a cultural exchange, the home and its contents were dismantled and transported to Massachusetts, where it was re-erected in the PEM. The PEM opened to the public in 2003. The house is currently undergoing work to preserve its roof tiles and masonry walls, so there was a lot of scaffolding obstructing views of the home and pictures taken of the museum. But it still well worth a visit; it's incredible. (The website says the house is closed 7/27-7/31 and 8/3-8/7, so maybe they'll have the work done by the end of those stretches!) I only wish the staff that had walked us into the house had explained exactly how much time we'd get inside the house before being ushered out for the next group, because my mom and I were using the audio guide to learn about the house as we explored. Before we finished several rooms, we were told our time was up, which was a bummer - we barely had time to peek into the rooms we hadn't gotten to yet, so I wish we'd known and could use our time better. They call it a tour on the website, but it's a self-guided experience; no museum staff walk you around the house. (FYI: You need a separate ticket for the Yin Yu Tang House, which you can buy on the website.) We explored the rest of the museum as well, including some of their interesting temporary exhibits: "Anila Quayyum Agha: All the Flowers Are for Me," "On This Ground: Being and Belonging in America," and "Beyond the Broom: Salem Short Films." Other highlights of our time were visiting the East India Marine Hall and seeing art and artifacts relating to the Salem Witch Trials. They also have a great gift shop, so save some time for that. A very nice regional art museum that is worth visiting if you have time in your Salem itinerary!

Best place to nerd out about space! The exhibits are amazing. There are also a few video…read moreexperiences also that really add to it. The price is not bad for the experience. Definitely worth a visit for anyone interested in space. The event also wasn't crowded. The staff did a really great job and controlling the flow of people.

I was pleasantly surprised with this museum all about the history of Lynn, Massachusetts…read more It's 2 floors of exhibits. Somerville's Union Square claims the invention of Marshmallow Fluff but it's manufactured in Lynn. There are stairs and an elevator. A baby changing table is in the women's restroom. I got around fine with a 6 year old & 10 month old in a stroller. I grew up on the North Shore and my high school job was at a dry cleaners in Lynn. I loved this small museum and would recommend it. Today, the museum was free as part of a Lunar New Year Celebration. They had a bunch of free crafts and a storytime for the kids and my daughter loved it.

Nice little museum including two levels. The first floor is mostly like a little gift shop, the…read morefront desk, bathrooms, and where they hold events. You can purchased shirts, mugs, maps of Lynn, postcards, quills, and many other random things highlighting the City of Lynn.The second floors is where everything you want to see is located. The have a little room where the kids can enjoy themselves trying in silly shoes or playing the piano. There are many interesting things to observe, mostly all about the history of Lynn. They have a elevator to get to the second level. There is also a nice little seating area outside

Super fun store! Had a great time and bought lots of awesome stuff!! Pictured, mugs, keychains,…read morewhich hats! So fun!

This was one of the coolest stores around. I recommend checking this place out. I was mesmerized…read more Inside is like being inside a twisted dream. It was dark and beautiful. This store has the most interesting decorations. It was an awesome find. This shop is larger than it looks. Inside, I saw stones, toys, home decorations, and cool stuff to buy. The people who work here were fun to talk to. They explained things to me. I didn't want to leave the store.

The cheese factor was a little up there for me. Our guide was fantastic and incredibly…read moreknowledgeable, but the exhibits themselves needed a bit of improvement. For kids? This is perfect because it's not too "adulty and boring."

My kids (8 and 7) enjoyed going to this museum with my in laws. They spent a couple of hours there…read morebefore getting lunch in town. They took some fun photos (see attached) and even came home with little treasure chests from the gift shop. While I don't think this is necessarily a museum you'd visit multiple times, this had been on their wish list for some time and I'm really glad they got to do it. From what I heard, there were fun photo ops and interactive displays.

My 22 month old cried when we were leaving because she was having so much fun. It's one big area…read morewith smaller rooms, each with a different theme. I think it definitely is best for walkers and this age was perfect. Everyone that worked there was friendly but I can see this being hard if it's busy as the rooms are a little small. We'll be back.

We brought our 18 month old over the last weekend and had such a great time (for both adults and…read morekiddo)! There are so many different themed rooms for the kiddos to explore safely. We bought tickets online for the 9AM-12PM block and some of the more popular rooms did start to get busy but you could easily go to another room if it was crowded. I liked that there were "trashcans" for toys that needed to be cleaned to prevent the spreading of germs. Bathrooms had step stools and toilet seats for kids which was great to see. There was a little room for kids to have their snacks as well. Check out the events calendar online to see if there are any special visitors/groups. The day we went there were visitors that brought crabs/hermit crabs and a project to make robo crabs. I do wish they had a water fountain or water filling station.

If you like history then this is for you. Its not what you expect. It has figures that has a…read morestoryline from when the trials happened. It gives you an overview and goes in depth of what happened. It makes you more knowledgeable about what really happened back in the day. It was a terrible thing that happened but its nice to get the overview again. The figures are old but its pretty cool to experience it through the lighting and old British man speaking.

This was...not a good museum. It's essentially two rooms/exhibits. One is the main auditorium,…read morewhere they do a "show" featuring an extremely dated voiceover lighting up dioramas on the walls. The other is a small, underwhelming hallway with a handful of rare books in it and, confusingly, what seems to be a diorama of...wiccans? Like, just two regular contemporary humans, standing in the woods. There were also quite a lot of inaccuracies in the voiceover, especially when it comes to Tituba. I had thought they'd be corrected after by the guides, but it seems like this place is less interested in historical accuracy and more in macabre vibes. Pretty sure they get all their custom by having a building that looks cool from the outside.