provincetown and cape cod

Next day we picked up a hire car and took a leisurely drive, via Plymouth (with its rather unimpressive Rock) down the Cape to Provincetown, to stay with Andrew and Angelo. 

     We took some of the more picturesque back roads, through picturesque villages with English names like Yarmouth and Brewster. A+A's place there has probably the best views in the town, right in the centre next to the public library, and up on the third floor, with sweeping views across the piers to Long Point with its lighthouse, the last gasp of the Cape as it spirals back on itself. They have had some traumas over the last two years as the building had to have major structural repairs, but all is now fixed and the apartment newly fitted out in the most elegant modern style. They are dear friends (we have known Andrew since university days) and meet up whenever we can. 

     They are always the perfect hosts, and took us all around the town, pointing out the quirky buildings and the historic sights, everything from tumbledown shacks to high modernism is represented here. Originally settled by Portuguese fishermen, it became a bohemian artists' colony in the days when it still seemed very remote.    We saw some of the results at the Art Gallery, which has a collection of newly found drawings by Edmund Hopper and his wife, whose troubled relationship played out in a house just down the coast in Truro.

      The harbour still has a few fishing boats,  one of which cut adrift in one of the recent storms and ended up against the breakwater.  But now of course “P'town” is mostly a tourist destination, at least from Memorial Day to Labor Day, and a very gay one at that; but at this time of the year, with just the long term population here and most of the tattier places closed down for the season, it has a serene charm.

      We went out next day to the Atlantic side of the Cape, to the old coastguard station at Race Point, and to Herring Cove, but were nearly blown away by the tail end of the nor'easter. The sea was wild, white capped and grey-green, under an intense blue sky with a couple of scudding clouds. Snow still covered much of the beach and it was not a day for a long visit. Just inland, and another day on, the beech woods were a better prospect, with many well trodden paths among the forest trees and ponds. 

     As always with A+A we ate very well, in a couple of the better restaurants still open and favoured by the locals; and one evening back at the apartment, where we had a very relaxing evening watching the sky darken behind the Pilgrims' monument as we tucked in to a great dinner.