Day 13 - Cape Cod (26 October ‘23)

simonmtalbot

Oct 27, 20234 min read

When we booked this trip we really wasn't expecting a summer-y holiday at all. We were expecting autumnal weather, a fair bit of rain etc. Today was a full on summer holiday day. Bright sunshine, bit of heat and the seaside. It was a perfect day to explore Cape Cod.

From Boston to the very end of Cape Cod at Province Town, locally known as 'Ptown', is just over two hours by car. We did a bit of research of places to stop along the way that would be a nice combination of beaches, lighthouses, historical sites and little coastal towns and so with a vague sort of plan we set off in the Cadillac!

The first stop was Plymouth, famous for being the site of the first Pilgrim settlement in 1620. This is marked with the Plymouth Rock which is on the sea front covered over by a granite portico. Nearby is Mayflower II, which is a replica of the original Mayflower (the boat that brought the first pilgrims over). It is a tourist attraction these days, however it was sailed from Plymouth, UK to Plymouth, MA in the 1950s so it is/was a fully functioning sail ship.

With the sun blasting, we grabbed a drink and sat on a bench for a bit and sniffed up the fresh sea air! It was difficult to grasp that it was late October in New England.

For our next stop, we were to have a sandwich in Sandwich. We grabbed a couple from the Deli and headed to the beach. We sat on the front overlooking the sandy beach (near a little group of pensioners that could easily have been the Thursday murder club) and had a very scenic lunch.

Next up was Chatham for the lighthouse. It wasn't quite as tall and substantial as I had thought, but it was very 'Cape Cod' and overlooked what looked like a lovely beach to have a paddle in. There were a few people walking along the beach but no one actually in it. As we walked down to the beach to take a closer look and perhaps have a paddle, we saw a sign that warned against going in the water as it was a popular place for Seals to swim and therefore popular with Great White Sharks. Upon closer inspection of the sign, a graph showed that October was the month for peak activity. Undeterred we got in and had a swim in the sea. (Did we bollocks). We walked along the beach and dipped our feet in, but decided against going any deeper than that.

We got back in the car and headed to Coastguard Beach and Nauset Lighthouse (via a nice little windmill we saw on the side of the road). Nauset Lighthouse was a bit closer to what I had pictured - but I think I might have been expecting the enormous one from Round the Twist (remember that?). It wasn't quite that, but it was worth the trip!

As time was pressing on we decided to head on over to Ptown. When we arrived, the first thing we saw was the Pilgrims' monument, which was built to commemorate the first landing of the Pilgrims - at 77 metres tall on a hill overlooking the town, you couldn't miss it. The town was alive with interesting characters in various costumes, lot of rainbow flags and quite a few gay couples (in party mode, lets say). Upon further research, Provincetown from the early 1900s was known as a very liberal and bohemian place and so LGBTQ+ people were welcomed here (unlike many other places at that time). Since then it has been the home of various festivals and events and apparently has the highest proportion of same sex couples in the whole of the USA. The town hosts the 'Spooky Bear Weekend' over the Halloween weekend, which appeared to be a fairly big deal, and it seems that today the town was filling up with people for this event. It had a bit of a Glastonbury vibe to it.

We mooched around the town a bit, caught the sunset and then headed back to the car to make our way back. Before returning the car we needed to do two things - have dinner at a Texas Roadhouse (a chain of incredible steak restaurants that are often located on the outskirts of cities and towns) and pop in to a Walmart for some bits (they are also rarely in city centres). We achieved both. Texas Roadhouse did not disappoint - best steak dinner you can get!

We finally said farewell to the car at the airport (no more driving on this trip), and returned to the AirBnB. Tomorrow we head into Boston to have a look around...