Hannibal is a Mark Twain town and you cannot easily escape that fact. The Boyhood Home, the Becky Thatcher House, and the Mark Twain Cave on the southern outskirts are the headline attractions. The 19th-century downtown along Main Street is a pleasure to walk, with old brick storefronts and a steamboat tied up at the levee in summer. Climb the steps up to the Mark Twain Lighthouse on Cardiff Hill for the view of the Mississippi and the bend in the river that Twain wrote about.