After three days in New York, it was time to head north for a week exploring the Massachusetts coast. Mile per mile New England is half way home – and it felt like it too. For a start there’s greenery; fields; forests; even a grass verge along the edge of freeway and joy of joy, instead of traffic lights - roundabouts!
Our first stop was a lunch break in the town of New London on Long Island Sound. New London is a seaport with shipyards; we tucked into a sandwich in an old fashioned café on a tired semi-industrial waterfront uncannily similar to the suburbs of my home town of Southampton in the UK. (If anyone from Southampton is actually reading this imagine Woolston but just a tad more up-market).
We then headed off in the rain to Newport Rhode Island, home of ocean sailing yachts and expensive boutiques. Too smart and wet for us so we jumped back in the car and set forth for Plymouth, our base for the week, and yes, home to those original Pilgrim Fathers.
Plymouth actually felt very much like any small British coastal village – a harbor, a village green, shops along the front selling everything from Cape Cod sweatshirts (a New England necessity), Plymouth rain coats (another necessity) cranberry teabags and the usual array of useless seaside knick-knacks. There were even youths hanging outside the local mini-market. We felt right at home.
Pride of place in Plymouth harbor sits a replica of the original Mayflower that carried 102 Pilgrims across the Atlantic in 1620. The actual rock where those Pilgrims apparently took their first steps on shore is now preserved for prosperity beneath a very grand marble mausoleum-like structure on the quayside. Since the original landing this piece of rock has been moved many times to various resting places around the town and apparently every time it’s moved; it’s dropped. It is now rather unceremoniously glued together with a seam of 21st century cement and is half the rock it used to be. Still it’s a major tourist attraction.
Plymouth is a living history book - every other house is a museum or a relic of a bygone age - A Pilgrim woz 'ere so to speak. Amongst all this memorabilia stands a relatively recent solitary statue of a native American whose people populated the area long before those first Europeans and whose ancestors must long rue the day they held out a helping hand of friendship to those early settlers.
Plymouth is a living history book - every other house is a museum or a relic of a bygone age - A Pilgrim woz 'ere so to speak. Amongst all this memorabilia stands a relatively recent solitary statue of a native American whose people populated the area long before those first Europeans and whose ancestors must long rue the day they held out a helping hand of friendship to those early settlers.
We had rented a typical New England clapperboard cottage for the week – built in 1870 when LA was just a mere glint in someone’s eye (and in my opinion that’s exactly where it should have stayed). The neighbours were friendly, made eye-contact, held a conversation and cut their own grass.
A quick trip to the local shops to acquire jeans for me; something with long sleeves for the teenager and the regulation Massachusetts anorak for him and we were all set for exploring New England.
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