Since Boston's most popular attraction opened in 1976, cities all over the country have imitated its "festival market" concept. Each complex of shops, food counters, restaurants, bars, and public spaces reflects its city, and Faneuil Hall Marketplace is no exception. Its popularity with visitors and suburbanites is so great that you might understandably think 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 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 cream puff to a full Greek dinner, a slice of pizza to a fresh-shucked oyster. On either side, under glass canopies, are full-service restaurants as well as pushcarts that sell everything from crafts created by New England artisans to hokey souvenirs. Here you'll find a 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 a mix of predictable 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.

The original Faneuil Hall sometimes gets overlooked, but it's well worth a visit.