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Published: September 19th 2009
We left Provincetown to travel to Falmouth and another glorious sunny day. En route we decided to stop in Chatham, again on a peninsula - Chris likes places on peninsulas - go figure. Anyway the beach was stunning, albeit far too dangerous for swimming. You could feel the ferocity of mother nature, as the wind was very strong even on a beautiful day and the sea currents looked treacherous. The lovely houses perched precariously on the cliff edge looked desirable, until you heard one of the locals telling how the present day landscape was created only a couple of years ago compliments of a ferocious storm which left two cliff top houses at the bottom of the sea - maybe we won’t be rushing out to buy the uninterrupted sea view after all!
Driving through the Cape Chris decided that his putting needed some practice so a quick round at one of the magnificent crazy golf courses proved just the job.
Arrived at the Falmouth Heights Motor Lodge, which we were pleasantly surprised with, dreams of the Bates Motel simply didn’t hold up. Although the very friendly receptionist couldn’t understand how the cheapest queen sized room would be enough
Pirate Golf
Not quite Wentworth but nice all the same.for us, it turned out to be bigger than our old bedroom at home plus all the mod cons such as en-suite shower room, TV, fridge and microwave. The only down side in addition to the number of the room - 13 - was that the WIFI connection was almost non-existent, how we ever managed to travel or find out anything before Wireless Internet we don’t know.
The ferry to Martha’s Vineyard was made interesting by chatting with a couple of Canadians who proved to be great virtual travelers and offered some interesting opinions on the Royals. We had briefly toyed with the idea of taking bikes or a tandem to see the island, anyone who knows Lisa would probably see this as an amusing choice, but decided that a day ticket on a local bus would be a better, and safer, bet. This meant that we would have to miss out on the delights of Gays Head but Provincetown had proved sufficient in this regard ;-)
Our first stop was Edgartown, which was very picturesque, quaint and extremely expensive if some of the yachts in the marina were anything to go by. The quaint shops had a
Edgartown
Beautiful Streets, Expensive Shops lot of sales because the rich locals had all left, they reduced their prices from astronomical to enormous. Next town on the route was Tisbury or better known as Vineyard Haven. These two towns thrived and their wealth was established during the ‘golden’ age of whaling. The town’s bank was a strange looking stone building, which was on the site of a saddle shop where a fire broke out in 1883 which destroyed most of the town, obviously the owner Mr Crocker wasn’t very popular although he protested his innocence until he died! William Street was named after Capt William Daggett, who built the first house along here, swiftly followed by the homes of other whaling captains - one of whom had the contract to supply whale oil to all of the lighthouses in the US, nice little earner that. Oak Bluffs which definitely had a more holidaymaker feel about it. Apparently the town grew as a result of large numbers of people attending Methodist revival meetings, and on the Camp Ground, where they erected tents, now stand beautiful little fairy tale gingerbread type houses. There are 300 of them in all colours covering the 36 acre site - as
you walk around you expect to see Hansel and Gretel emerge from one of them at any moment. Unfortunately the Flying Horses Carousel was not open when we were there as it would have been great to see the oldest operating platform in the country.
Overall impressions of Martha’s Vineyard, a little paradise, it’s easy to understand why so many rich and famous use it as their bolt hole, not least of all a certain Barack Obama & family spent last summer building sand castles on the beach.
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Fiona
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The cottages
The future is definitely pink! Loving your blog and all your pics. Sending you both lots of love xx