new york

     So finally to New York and our friend Kathleen's apartment in Chelsea. As always we were able to spend a lot of time with her and she treated it like a vacation in her own city.

     We walked the High Line down to the new Whitney, by Renzo Piano, on the west side waterfront. The building interiors are excellent, and we saw there an exhibition of work by Grant Wood, known for the painting American Gothic (disturbing resemblance to radicals Bernie Sanders and Cynthia Nixon?) but who produced deco and realist influenced landscapes and figure studies that are beautiful but somehow disturbing. We also saw the museum's impressive collection of American art.    

     Later we walked right down the much extended Hudson river walkway. The walkways (also on the east side) are giving the city some much needed additional open space.

     We travelled farther afield on this trip than previously:

• to St John's cathedral (magnificent interior and, strangely, peacocks in the grounds!) and down through the further reaches of Central Park;
• to the Brooklyn Museum (another good collection of mostly American art) and Prospect Park (rather sombre on a grey day);
• to Williamsburg (a nice trip on the new ferries), NY's new vibrant (=hipsters and graffiti) hub, where we found a nice pub for an afternoon drink;
• and to the Bowery for a tour of the fascinating Tenement Museum, where an excellent guide explained the history of this part of NY, with its history of welcoming and supporting waves of immigrants through the years.

     We also took a ride on the Hudson Railroad, which travels right up that wide river, with sparkling views all the way, to Beacon, a very picturesque old industrial town, its mills now converted to lofts for prosperous commuters. There are also good walks along the river. All things we would recommend to visitors.

     New York is changing, as it always has, with lots of new very tall, and controversial, apartment buildings going up, and obviously a lot of money about. Yet there is still a lot of grime, old fashioned and abandoned buildings, and poverty, even in the better areas. Not to mention a dysfunctional transport system and poor quality public realm spaces. We have very mixed feelings about NY, but I am sure we will be back to enjoy the good things, the culture and the constant reinvention.

     Andrew and Angelo invited us and Kathleen over for an Italian dinner one foggy evening in their 23^rd floor apartment. With the windows open (due to an overachieving steam heating system), the sounds of sirens and car horns, and the vague impression of 1920s apartment blocks with windows aglow in the gloaming, it was a quintessential NY experience.

     For a finale we and Kathleen met up with dear old friends Joel and Paula to see Macy's spring flower festival and to have lunch in the new Italian restaurant on the top floor, light, spacious, quiet and good food too, and of course good company as always. 

     We're lucky to have so many good friends in the US and this trip was all the better and more memorable for them.

MD and DC: a tale of two lincolns

     

     Next, Lincoln kindly drove us all the way down to their other home Maryland. Frederick is another colonial town, that grew at an important crossroads: the main roads still lined with 18^th century houses, mostly in a rich deep red brick, which gives the centre a very attractive feel. It acts as a focus for a wide area and is busy in the evenings, with many bars and restaurants, which we sampled. There is also a well maintained linear park running through the town alongside its river, Carroll Creek.

      Lincoln and James' townhouse has been carefully restored and once again we had a comfortable stay. They have only been here a few years but seem to be well in with the local scene. On the Sunday they took us to their friends' 'Dark and Stormy' party centred around Stormy Daniels' interview on CNN, the latest episode in the soap opera that is Donald Trump. Some very friendly people there welcomed us into their home and circle.

      On a glorious, sunny day in Washington DC we walked for miles around the Mall, taking in the ceremonial heart of the nation: Congress, the Smithsonian museums, the White House and the Lincoln memorial. It was poignant to think about the high principles of the great founders of the nation, and compare them with what goes on in these buildings today.

Lincoln also took us to the battlefield site at Antietam, which gave us a good insight into the events of the Civil War. Beautiful countryside now on another brilliantly sunny day, but it suffered the worst loss of any US battle in a single day – over 22,000 dead on both sides – in a crude, bloody and brutal fight, which was ultimately indecisive in the war. Nearby is the Gettysburg field where Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, on the verge of victory, praised those who fought so that his nation “shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” A pity that so many politicians today – and not only in the US – offer hatred and fear of the other, rather than inclusiveness and hope.

      Our great thanks to our Lincoln for ferrying us around and to him and James for their continual hospitality.

lyme, CT

     

     Time to move on again, as A+A returned to New York and we drove along the coast with a couple of stops, to meet up with Lincoln in Connecticut. Since we last visited, James and Lincoln have moved from their little house by the pond in Chester to a larger property in Lyme. Their new place is more rural and a nice blend of traditional and modern. 

     Snow from the storm was still lingering here, and we could see the footprints of deer that had passed through their property. The house incorporates an old stone building, now a magnificent double height living room, and a much larger more modern extension. Lincoln's interior design skills are well in evidence: we had a very comfortable stay. We had only spent a couple of days in New England before, and this time we were able to travel around and see much more, thanks to Lincoln, our guide. The towns here go way back, mostly established in the 1600s in colonial times.

     We toured many of the pretty local towns, all New England clapboard houses with a few in brick and stone, and mostly prosperous looking, all carefully maintained, with white picket fences and tidy gardens. Each town has its handsome town hall, its public library and fire station, and several brilliant white churches, each with a steeple and columned portico and a cemetery. Also a surprising number of expensive knick-knack shops stocking perfumed candles, ceramic cats and homespun plaques with corny sayings. Some of the highlights we recommend:

• a tiny coffee shop, Higher Grounds, in East Haddam, for brunch, where we were almost the only customers and the only member of staff did everything – serving and cooking – very proficiently and charmingly
• the Griswold* Inn in Essex, established 1776, with a very English pub feel to the tap room and a fine range of ales
• the Florence Griswold* museum, an old mansion run as a boarding house for artists, by a much loved if impoverished landlady, kept exactly as it was over 100 years ago, with many painted panels by the artists of the time as they developed an American Impressionist body of work. We were taken round by a well informed and engaging guide (British born but in the area since 1960) who knew the artists and their work so well that we almost thought we were in the presence of Miss Griswold herself.

• Litchfield, a very fine colonial town with wide greens in the centre and a wide range of 18^th and 19^th C houses (and a very expensive antiques shop).  
• Mystic, an old whaling town with a huge raising bridge, a reconstruction of the port from whaling days, and gift shops that live up to the town's name.

Lincoln also showed us another property in Lyme they have acquired, which they are busily doing up as two houses (one from the former barn). Impressive progress already – we saw the construction workers on site working to Lincoln's imaginative plans.

James joined us for the last evening and prepared an excellent dinner, and so concluded a very comfortable New England week. We came away thinking this would be a good area for a longer stay, and I believe one day we will do just that.

*presumably related but not found the evidence for this.

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.