3 November 2022
When we think back to New England, one particular image comes to mind: a village with a green, clapboard houses, an old tavern and a white wooden church topped by steeple. Providing a backdrop is the gaudy red, gold and orange of New England’s renowned Indian summer. Photographs cannot capture the intensity of the blue sky or the vibrant colors of the leaves. Trust us: you have to see it for yourself.
Having said that, on this trip we only travelled through three of the six states making up New England: Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Vermont (missing out on Maine, Connecticut and Rhode Island due to time restraints). We started in Boston, having flown in there on the red-eye from Seattle (on my birthday actually, Delta graciously offered me a glass of champagne). Having already visited the city in depth a few weeks earlier, we took a rental car at the airport and headed off straight down the Massachusetts Turnpike towards the Berkshire Hills.
Fall is without doubt the best time to visit New England. Starting in mid-September, the “color” arrives in northern Maine and slowly moves south; peak time for “leaf peeping” is usually the first two weeks of October, when skies are blue and the sun is still warm. We were perhaps 2 weeks late on that schedule but we still enjoyed beautiful, sunny weather against a glorious backdrop of fading gold, crimson, red and orange foliage.
We did not engage in too strenuous activities, although New England, like most of the US, has so much to offer in the Great Outdoors. It’s just one big natural playground but this trip was about sitting back, breathing in the clean air and taking in Mother Nature’s handiwork, much of which is zealously protected in what has long been one of America’s most eco-conscious regions.
And as for food and drink, well, this is really the place for seafood. The cold Atlantic waters provide fish, clams, oysters and – above all – lobster. More recently, local chefs have piloted the farm-to-fork movement, promoting local produce, from top-quality fruit and veg to artisan cheeses. And to drink, what else but craft brews and ciders made in the region?
The itinerary
Day 1
Our first stop was in historic Stockbridge, parking in Main Street, which was full of life, with plenty of great cafes, local stores and restaurants. We had lunch in the iconic Red Lion Inn, dating from 1773, and retaining many of its colonial features. Now also a hotel, the room prices were unfortunately way above our budget. We had a nice, digestive walk around the cute town centre before moving on to nearby Lenox, where we stayed for the night
Day 2
A walk after breakfast in Lenox, full of cute coffee shops and stores gathered around the village green, was a great start to our day. We could easily have continued exploring the charming Berkshires but instead, we decided to move on and headed up north on the I-7 into Vermont.
Vermont is righty known for its scenic roads, lovely valleys and rolling Green Mountains. Along the way, we sniffed out one of New England’s picture-book sights - wooden “covered bridges” – and could actually drive through it. We arrived in photogenic Woodstock, with its boutiques, historic monuments, art galleries and village green. Again, we could not locate any suitable accommodation in the town and so we continued north in the fading light up to Stow.
Day 3
Stow is another charming little down (as well as an up-market ski resort in the winter) dating back to the 1600s and set in gently rolling hills with lots of rustic country lanes. Just outside the town, we visited the Trapp Family Lodge, now a de-luxe hotel, founded by Baron von Trapp, an Austrian nobleman, and whose story formed the basis for the famous 1960s musical, the Sound of Music.
An hour west of Stow lies Burlington, on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain (Montreal is situated on the northern shore of the same lake). We strolled along the lakefront in Battery Park, taking in the beautiful foliage of the park and superb lake views. Then it was time to head back south down the I-89 to Manchester, New Hampshire, and our stop for the night.
Day 4
The next morning, we drove steadily for another three hours on the Interstate, looping past Boston, to finally reach Cape Cod, a hook-shaped peninsula jutting into the Atlantic and a popular summertime destination. It's the site of quaint villages, seafood shacks, lighthouses, ponds and bay and ocean beaches. Ferries sail to and from Nantucket, Martha’s Vineyard and Boston.
When we arrived there, the summer season had just ended and many hotels, restaurants and shops had already closed, lending it a very special hors-season vibe. We followed the U.S. 6 along the Cape Cod National Seashore to reach our small hotel in the capital, Provincetown, at the very end of the peninsula: the next dry land east after that is Ireland.
Day 5
Provincetown has a handful of prominent attractions, but the main thing to do here is just to relax and browse the many cool shops and art galleries (at least those which were still open). The streets were eerily quiet as we checked out the 85m tall Pilgrim Monument, which looms over town. We were unfortunately too late for the whale-watching excursions or seashore trips.
We left Provincetown and explored the eastern shore this time, stopping in several places (including Brewster) just to take in the views or a for a stroll along a deserted beach. We ended up in Hyannis, made famous by its connections to the Kennedy’s.
On our last afternoon, we went back to New England’s beginning – the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers near Plymouth, Massachusetts in 1620. We saw what life was like then and talked to role-players at the Plimoth Plantation, rated as one of America’s best living history museums.
Boston was just an hour away and we booked into our airport hotel for our last night in the USA before flying back to Switzerland the next day.
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