RETRACING THE PILGRIMS’ TRAIL: Cape Cod & Boston by Bentley
Categories: Travel
Written By: admin
It was a simple plan: reconnect with what made America so dynamically vibrant and culturally significant, all while luxuriating amidst the scenery of the some of the places where it all began: the Cape area of Massachusetts and the birthplace of our Union, Boston.
We chose our transport with a sense of the irony: what better way to examine the modern Western society birthed here than ensconced in the cosseting cockpit of a $200,000 Bentley convertible.
Our first stop was Provincetown, where—I was surprised to learn—the Pilgrims first arrived before tagging that well-known rock on a beach some miles across the bay. Though it didn’t proffer the hospitality the Englishmen required for settlement, Provincetown more than took care of us, as we enjoyed the pampering comfort of the Crowne Pointe Inn, a historic, sybaritic bit of paradise built of a whaling captain’s residence.
This in itself was a vivid reminder of the irony endemic in P-town itself—a place that first made its reputation from the exploitation of the natural resources within our cetacean brethren. Yet here was an essential part of our journey—that the very certitude for which we seem to be nostalgic encompasses its own limitations; those folk of the 17th through 19th centuries couldn’t, despite their moral conviction, see they were virtually obliterating an entire species.
Today the place that launched ships of destruction serves as a hub of research and succor for whales, through the auspices of the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies. Partially funded by the 25,000 whale watching trips it has guided into the rich water ecosystem of the nearby Stellwagen Bank, the Center has helped educate over two million people in the ways of humpbacks, finback, minke, and right whales. We ourselves were richly rewarded for suffering the choppy seas, as first a 30-foot minke barrel-rolled clear out of the water, and later an assortment of playful, 50-foot humpbacks put on a choreographed acrobatic routine right alongside the deck.
Our other experiences in P-town only heightened this feeling of the transformative power of history. During the day we toured the Cape’s spectacular dunes, learning about the efforts of the local Kennedy clan in the sixties to preserve this bleakly beautiful place for future generations via the knowledgeable folk of Art’s Dune Tours, the only company licensed to guide visitors through this amazing seascape.
In the evening we dined at the Red Inn, which, being built in a wonderful old low-beamed building situated right on the harbor, allowed us to share the sense of weathered hardship that comes from life on the edge of the Atlantic, while taking in the sumptuous sustenance of executive chef and owner Philip Mossy’s exceedingly fine kitchen.
We pointed the Bentley’s prow inland, and steered a course for our next stop, Plymouth. Bypassing as much of the highway as possible, we stuck to the winding way of routes 6A and 3A, which meander along the Bay through a bounty of lovely little hamlets such as Yarmouth and Sandwich, and that help trace the history of the hardy New Englanders.
Along the way, we discovered golf both hardy and historic. A pair of perky nine-holers lie just east of Provincetown: North Truro’s Highland Links Golf Course has overlooked the Atlantic from a high bluff since 1895, while Wellfleet’s Chequessett Yacht and Country Club runs along Cape Cod Bay and will celebrate its 80th birthday next year.
Both serve as great waterfront warm-ups to the Port and Starboard courses at The Captains Club in Brewster, south of Wellfleet. Despite their nautical nomenclature, both Captains courses are quirky, penal parkland layouts from New England’s answer to Jim Engh—Brian Silva, whose designs, including Captains and nearby Cape Cod National Golf Club, have earned numerous best new course awards from Golf Digest.
Cape Cod National limits public play to guests of the Wequassett Inn, and since we were near American golf’s populist birthplace (Francis Ouimet’s 1913 U.S. Open win occurred two hours away in Brookline), we decided to spoil our walks at places where a tee time required nothing more than cash and a collar. Dennis Highlands and Dennis Pines—a pair of rolling, mature layouts on the bay in East Dennis—fit the bill, as did the historic, delightful Donald Ross-designed Bass River Golf Course in Yarmouth. The pro there informed us that Ouimet, whose daughter still lives in Truro, often played with Bobby Jones up the road in Eastham, at a short-lived privately owned course called Cedar Bank Links. Eastham’s Town Hall and the Cape Cod National Seashore Visitors Center area now stand where these legends once did—with nothing to commemorate the fact.
Making our way to Plymouth, we found it full of its own sights, and some more lessons as well. We bedded down at the homey Pilgrim Sand’s, which the same family has run for over forty years, and drifted off to the sound of the tide pounding the rocks right outside our window.
The Bentley’s myriad comforts and conveniences lent an especial contrast to our tour the next day of the Mayflower II, celebrating the 50th anniversary of its building and wind-powered journey to America by a grateful group of postwar Brits who wanted to recreate the adventure of its predecessor 337 years earlier. Its 17th century-correct, cramped quarters and tiny size in relation to the vastness of the Atlantic, separated by only a handbreadth of hardwood, only highlighted the audacity and tenacity of the Pilgrims themselves.
This austerity served as a prelude to our visit to the Plimouth Plantation, a place that has for generations accurately presented what these hardy fundamentalists faced in on this vast new continent. What’s new is the focus placed on the role of the true Americans, the Wampanoag tribe.
No longer a small sideline to the recreation of a portion of the early Pilgrim settlement, the extended indigenous household is a humbling trip back in time, heightened by the smells of the wood fire burnings used to create canoes, and time spent in a wetu (house) with descendents of the peoples who helped succor the fledgling colony long ago.
Here is a living, breathing reminder of how humans lived in balance with their environment for something like 12,000 years, before the white man came. And the devastation they suffered for their generosity—including tens of thousands of deaths unintentionally caused by European disease, kidnappings, and exploitation, resulting in the almost systemic eradication of an entire culture and way of life—serve as a reminder of the dark side of the drive that turned a tender young country toward hegemeny. That said, I couldn’t help but be proud of the fortitude, passion, and pursuit for betterment that helped the colonials to conquer a continent in what is really a blink of time.
That drive was exemplified to us by seeing that the Boston Commons was founded in 1634, a scant fourteen years after the first settlers reached this shore. To imagine them building a city in such short order was to revel in the dynamic spirit of these pious pioneers, who despite their obvious—and very human—fallibility, went on to become the most generous and giving people the world has ever known.
We couldn’t have imagined a better headquarters for our journey through time, as our hotel, Nine Zero, is situated right along the Freedom Trail, and our sophisticated and lush corner suite offered a spectacular vista that included the capital and the Commons itself.
Taking in Bunker Hill, the old North Church and other historic sites in this most Old World of New World cities, the Trail engenders a predictably patriotic pride. Charmingly crooked streets and scrumptious eateries, with the high points being brunch at Paramount (1937), lunch at the North End’s Regina Pizzeria (1926), and an inventive dinner at Radius, which, while only nine years old, is making history of its own, garnering every imaginable regional award.
During the hosted gratis wine hour at both Nine Zero and the equally sumptuous Hotel Marlow in nearby Cambridge, we had some chance to gauge the feelings of numerous international travelers. And while there is indeed some feeling of disappointment in our handling of the Iraq situation, what comes through more than anything is the incredible goodwill still felt towards this young nation of ours.
America’s history grew less simplistic the more we examined it on our travels, and witnessing all the mistakes we’ve made since its very inception lent a refreshed perspective to current events. Yeah, we pretty much started making mistakes as soon as we set foot off the boat. Yet, despite our misjudgments, we are still a people and a nation committed to bettering ourselves and bringing a more prosperous and free way of life to people the world over. This was driven home by our final short jaunt in the Bentley, a rolling example of the better life Americans have achieved and most everyone else the world over emulates.
CAPE COD & BOSTON RESOURCES
PROVINCETOWN
CROWNE POINTE HISTORIC INN & SPA
Crownepointe.com
THE RED INN
Theredinn.com
ART’S DUNE TOURS
Artsdunetours.com
PROVINCETOWN CENTER FOR COASTAL STUDIES
Coastalstudies.org
PLYMOUTH
PILGRIM SANDS
Pilgrimsands.com
PLIMOUTH PLANTATION/MAYFLOWER II
Plimouth.org
BOSTON
NINE ZERO HOTE
Ninezero.com
HOTEL MARLOWE
Hotelmarlowe.com
RADIUS
Radiusrestaurant.com
THE PARAMOUNT
Paramountboston.com
PIZZERIA REGINA
Pizzeriaregina.com
BOSTON FREEDOM TRAIL
Thefreedomtrail.org
