Pickleball seems to be de rigueur on the Portland tennis courts
We played tennis for the first time at the Eastern Prominade. 6-2, 2-4 in my favour. Most people play pickleball there now. We got there a little early and had a nice lady explain pickleball to us.
Tennis for me, thanks all the same.
Then we played a good game of tennis in that lovely setting.
After tennis and a shower, we went to Micucci to buy some charcuterie & cheeses for Sunday. Also to try their much vaunted pizza for lunch – one big pizza slice between the two of us was more than plenty.
I don’t normally dig pizza, but this simple (half) pizza slice was just the ticket for lunch
We relaxed on the terrace of our lovely Munjoy Hill apartment in the afternoon…
…ahead of an early evening meet up with Susan Gorman and her partner Bill at Woodford F&B, in mid-town Portland.
It was lovely to meet Susan (my Keele flatmate Alan Gorman’s widow) after several years of correspondence. It was also a pleasure to meet Bill.
We tried Woodford’s famous burgers, which were very good, preceded by a cheese plate to share with a special local cheddar as its centre piece, together with a wild cherry garnish. Janie and I drank a very interesting NY State Gewurtztraminer.
Susan and Bill both had very interesting things to say about local issues in South Maine and wider issues too, of course. They live in Biddeford, which is about 25-30 minutes south of Portland, but Bill had lived in Portland previously.
Indeed, the food, beverages and conversation were so completely absorbing, that our resident culinary photographer (Janie) forgot to take any photos of the occasion, which had her kicking herself afterwards. Actually, an unphotographed meal out is such a rarity these days, I think the absence of photos signifies the very specialness of the occasion.
It was such a pleasure to spend some time with Susan and Bill – they kindly dropped us back at our apartment before they set off for home.
Janie (Daisy) took hundreds of pictures and I took a few – a small sample are shown in this piece
After that cheesecake breakfast…
…we set off early for a day of leaf-peeping in New Hampshire.
Janie drove out to Conway, where we discovered (more or less as I expected) that the tourist information office was closed as it is staffed by Federal employees who were in shut-down.
No matter, as I had planned our route carefully anyway.
I took the wheel to drive the Kancamagus Pass to Lincoln. Janie took an infeasible number of pictures along the way, and some video (just 2’42”).
We stopped at Rocky Gorge and took a short walk around the gorge, going beyond the tourist-heavy area on the car park side of the bridge and finding some quieter spots where we could explore the gorge a little.
We encountered a wedding couple having their pictures taken. We discreetly left them alone, only to subsequently witness a bossy-boots cyclist women telling the couple and their photographer how to do it “her way”.
I continued the drive beyond Lincoln, starting the journey home “the long-way-round” by driving up into the foothills of Mount Washington to Bretton Woods.
This enabled us to see some different scenery and also enabled us to take a break at the Omni Mount Washington Resort, which was the scene of the 1944 Bretton Woods conference.
This felt, to me, a pilgrimage I needed to make. We wanted a light lunch, so we ordered just a couple of “appetisers”: calamari & fries. The portions were so darned enormous, I don’t think we ate much more than half of the food presented to us.
“Where do I begin?…”
The bar manager who served us was very helpful, and knew Portland well, so gave us some dining tips that served us well for the rest of our holiday.
Upstairs after dining, I hoped to see The Gold Room where the documents founding the International Monetary Fund were formally signed off. While searching for the room, a small man asked if he could help us, we explained our mission and he most certainly helped us as it turned out that he is the new General manager of the Omni Mount Washington.
“John & Henry have texted to say they have some documents for me to sign”
That was good fortune as we sensed that most people around there only had the vaguest idea about the site’s historic past.
The Ballroom where the conference took placeYup, I’ll vote in favour of that…whatever it is…economics or something?
Janie did the longer drive home, via Wholefoods, where we had planned to stock up for a supper at home on Sunday, but after our bumper lunch and long day, we resolved to have a supper at home also that evening.
I had been keen to try the nova style of salmon, which I had read is subtly different from “Scottish” smoked salmon style and New York lox style. Wholefoods afforded us the opportunity to try some small packets of the various types of salmon, so we could have a private tasting of those things.
It actually proved to be a very pleasant and tasty way to end the day. And after all the fried food of calamari & chips, some smoked fish and salad seemed just the ticket.
If you are crazy enough to want to look at all 200 or so pictures from this day (at least one or two gallant readers have already done so pre-publication), you can click this Flickr link or the picture link below.
Some of the orientation required sitting on our terrace enjoying the sun & the view
Our house was a very very very fine house
We decided to make this an orientation day, so we did a fair bit of walking around but not a lot of things.
Giant cruise ships were regular features in the harbour
I had spotted that we were relatively close to a nice-looking and well reviewed Italian deli, Micucci, so we started our exploration there. After buying a few provisions there (and checking out that we would return for other stuff during our week) we progressed on to have a look at the tennis courts on the Eastern Promenade, which looked well-appointed so I resolved to work out how to book those.
We walked all around the Eastern Promenade and met a really nice lady near the bandstand who gave us some good advice ahead of our Kancamagus trip tomorrow.
Then home again via the convenience store at the top of our street where we stocked up on some basics that Italian delis don’t sell, such as breakfast cereal, bananas and milk.
Street & Co bar
Several of the fancier restaurants were fully booked for this night, but I got us a late evening booking at Street & Co, that looked good for seafood. I also made one or two other bookings for later in our week to be sure to have places to go, as it seems the better places book up.
Street & Co is on the wharf, about 20 minutes walk from our flat. It was a buzzing place and they kept us waiting best part of 30 minutes for our table. But the wait was worth it, as the grub was great. A home-made tomato soup that tasted like an Uber-posh Heinz tomato soup on steroids.
Then, perhaps unwisely, we had the Lobster and seafood linguini dish for two, which comes with a “wrestle-your-own” lobster to share.
That spoon ain’t gonna cut it……OK, Ged, start wrestling…
In our defence, I think the chefs had forgotten to crack the claws with their industrial instruments before serving, as the less-industrial tools we were given were not really up to the task. This is partly inadequate work-folk blaming their tools, but I think the waitress realised the error when Janie asked for some help. The dish was utterly delicious though…almost worth the fight…although we think our lobster-wrestling days are behind us now. The “lazy lobster”options look that much more enticing.
There’s a man who knows how to cut a cheesecake
No such fight with the cheesecake, which looked super special and was. We shared one piece and took a second piece home for tomorrow’s “breakfast”. Indulgent? Yes, and why not when we are on holiday? It was the best cheesecake we tasted on the whole of our trip.
Janie and I set off quite early from Cape Cod after a hearty breakfast and fond farewells with our hosts Mike and Helen.
Janie drove the 90 minutes from Cape Cod to South Shore Plaza in Braintree, just south of Boston, where we had arranged to meet Pady at the American Cheesecake Factory.
Yo, cheesecake…yes! cheesecake.
It was lovely to see Pady again, after a couple false starts over the past few years, due to her unfortunate needs to abort planned visits to England, most recently in July.
Mansplaining…Phonesplaining
A few hours flew by before our agreed departure hour arrived – 3:00ish, to avoid the Boston traffic on the way out to Portland.
Janie and Pady admiring the Pad-mobile
Pady had carefully planned the convenience of the meet up around an easy to find and get away from location. But none of us had counted on an earlier than usual rush hour, on account of the Red Sox playing the Yankees in a play-off match starting at 6:00. Who knew?
What would have been a little over two hour drive became a three-and-a half hour drive, which Janie insisted on doing, pleading that I was better at navigating to new destinations, which might be true.
We arrived in Portland just as it was getting dark. We checked in to our lovely AirBnb apartment and then went in search of a local casual place, as we didn’t want all that much food after sampling “light lunch” and sharing a cheesecake with Pady earlier.
We found a quirky, casual place named The East Ender, which turned out to be a karaoke bar downstairs and a casual diner upstairs. The wailing from the karaoke bar had to be heard to be believed, but mercifully the sound didn’t much travel up the stairs. We were able to enjoy a light supper of caesar salad (Janie) and schnitzel (me).
Yum-yum
One of the waitresses suggested that we might like to try our hands at the karaoke. When I told her that I could offer some Renaissance tavern songs, she said:
Medieval? Scary!
At that juncture, Janie and I saw our opportunity to leave and have a much-needed early night.
The Inn At Cape Cod breakfast was consistently good
We wanted an easier day today and more or less got what we wanted.
We hoped we could just turn up and play tennis at the local (South Yarmouth) courts and so it turned out. Steve seems to look after the place very nicely and gently, welcoming tourists if they want to pay to play.
The courts are green clay, which we’d never played before. Very similar feel to the synthetic clay we have tried and enjoyed in Stratford-Upon-Avon.
Steve recommended Cuffy’s, so we stopped there for a while.
Rather a strange “mock harbour bazaar” at which Janie eventually splashed the cash on some deeply discounted sports shorts but which has no place to sit down and take refreshments.
The staff suggested ‘the Dunkin” down the street, but my googling found an equally nearby place with a more artesanal look – Three Fins Coffee Roasters. There we took iced coffee, a Danish and a muffin…cos that’s what you do in places like that…and listened to a string of 60s hits by British artists.
Then on to Hyannis Port, on a somewhat bizarre mission to see the Kennedy Compound. The sat nav sort of gets you there, but the no parking signs and the road signs take you away from the compound itself, either to the next beach along or near the “invitation only” Hyannisport Club.
In the end I parked 10 minutes walk away and we walked down, only for Janie to ignore the “Private” sign at the edge of the compound itself and end up being gently removed by a chatty elderly lady in a high viz vest who is paid to enforce the privacy.
At least Mrs High-Viz didn’t point a gun or shoot at Daisy
Let’s not muse as to whether or not roads and movements of that kind can actually block the right of way for walkers – people in the USA all have guns! The security lady didn’t look as though she was carrying a gun and became very chatty as she walked us back to the slightly more public road. Strange place.
Undaunted, we set off back to Yarmouth, stopping on the way for gas (petrol). “Leave this to me”, I said, for our first ever petrol stop in the USA, and possibly just as well. I studied the petrol pump for some time, musing that the green pump (which would symbolise petrol in the UK) looked decidedly diesel-like in its signage, whereas the black one (which would mean diesel in the UK) looked like it wanted to serve petrol. “Let’s ask someone”, said Janie, landing on an unfortunate, random customer, before I had a chance to go and ask an informed person in the gas station. The poor man had no idea why Janie was asking him “petrol or diesel” questions, assuming that she didn’t know whether our car was petrol or diesel. “Best you read the manual”, he said, trying to help.
Fortunately, someone from the gas station spotted us and came out to assist. The binary oppositeness of the UK/USA petrol/diesel signage was soon explained and understood. The nice gentleman who had tried to help looked enlightened when he realised why we had been confused, sympathising with us, as he had never been outside the USA and realised that he would have been similarly confused himself.
A lesson you only need to learn once.
We got home in time to enjoy just a few minutes on our terrace before it got too cold for sitting out, at which point we strolled up the road to book the local Japanese Restaurant Inaho, for this evening and then retired for a while to wash and read.
Soon our hunger and tempting look of the Inaho place overcame us, so we went and grabbed our table early. The nice maitre d lady had saved us a booth which was a lovely way to try the place. The food was excellent – one of the best Japanese restaurants we have ever tried.
It was very photogenic food – Daisy went a bit mad with her camera and even I took a few.
Bass tempura was excellent and unusualNot exactly traditional Japanese desert but another culinary star turn
The atmosphere in there was excellent too. Thoroughly recommended.
Back home for an infeasibly early night but we were both very tired and had packing and a long drive tomorrow ahead of us, so an early night was probably a very good idea.
We decided to do a loopy tour of Cape Cod today, loosely based on the recommended loop that Mike & Helen leave in the Inn rooms for their guests.
Not everything on their loop took our fancy, but we certainly liked the idea of a few scenic stops along the way (Fort Hill, Marconi Beach, Race Point Beach to Provincetown, a look around that place, then back via Chatham.
Fort Hill ScenesDaisy with our road trip conduit – Max The Mazda – at Fort HillMarconi Beach – not much to see here to be honest
In Provincetown, we struggled to make the local parking app work, settling in the end for $20 a day car park near the centre of town.
Strolling Provincetown
We enjoyed walking around, taking in the vibe of the place, streets and sea front…
…looking at the quirky wharf mall, and taking ice cream there…cos that’s what you do in a place like Provincetown.
Then on to Chatham, where we stopped at the village end of the town and then walked past some beautifully appointed houses/gardens…
…to the fishing port part of the town.
Beside the fish market, we saw the afternoon catch arriving, with gulls and seals waiting eagerly in the hope of some tasty by-catch.
Quite a full day, that, leaving us no time to sit like lord and lady muck on our terrace before it got too chilly. Instead, we readied ourselves for dinner and braced ourselves for the 30 second walk from our Inn to the Old Yarmouth next door, where we had booked a table in the Red Room, in the hope of seeing the ghost.
Me? Present. Janie? Present. Ghost? Absent.
Disappointingly, the ghost didn’t show, but we did enjoy a feast of shrimp in coconut starter, followed by swordfish (in Janie’s case) and a “lazy lobster” dish in my case, which was not only pieces of buttered lobster but also a breadcrumby pounding of shrimp and scallops too.
“You cannot be serious”…
Again, enormous portions beyond our ability to finish, but very tasty.
If this article does not have sufficient eye-candy for you, by all means delve into the infeasibly large number of pictures we took that day, through this Flickr link or the picture link below.
We left our Newport AirBnB in a bit of a flurry, having somehow managed to take hours over a light breakfast, packing and leaving for Cape Cod. We stopped briefly along the way at Flos, to try their famous clear clam chowder. Really atmospheric place, playing 70s soft rock relentlessly. The clear clam chowder was tasty and light, although we think the creamy style is more to our taste.
A place where it’s best to go with the Flo
The journey was fine and quick, despite some drama in the matter of the boot (or, as the Americans say, “trunk”) not functioning properly.
We arrived at The Inn At Cape Cod well ahead of schedule and ahead of opening time, which was a problem only because, on parking up at the Inn, the trunk became jammed open, which made me understandably reluctant to walk away from the Inn towards the tempting looking cafe up the road.
Mercifully, one of the staff who was preparing he rooms arranged for us to get in a little early so we could at least dump our baggage. While doing so, I grabbed the corkscrew from our room and executed the necessary unjamming and jiggling to get the trunk working properly again. Superhero status guaranteed, for the next few hours anyway.
After the trauma of that relocation, I made a (successful) bid to remain in our Portland AirBnB for the remaining unhooked three nights at the end of our trip, meaning that we’ll only relocate once more ahead of our return home. As most of the places we want to see are day-trippable from Portland, this seemed to be a hassle-reducing manoeuvre.
The middle tier balcony was all ours
We sat on the lovely terrace of our suite for a while, reading and (presumably) looking like New England grandees of Joshua Sears descent. Joking apart, story of the Inn and the wealthy New Englander who built it is a fascinating one for lovers of that type of thing.
Yarmouth is a quiet Cape Cod town with three superb restaurants near to our Inn. Some diligent research revealed that not all the restaurants open every day midweek, so I made bookings where possible to arrange the only combination, when booking Sunday, Monday, Tuesdays, that enabled us to try all three places within walking distance on the three nights of our stay.
That meant dining at Leonessa on the first night. That one was the longest of the three walks; c15 minutes. Our walk to the place was nearly ended after 15 seconds, when a speeding car whizzed around the corner as Daisy crossed the road outside our Inn. He stopped in time…just…but it was a near thing that shocked all three of us, I expect.
Glad just to still be here…and now look at this amazing photogenic food
The meal at Leonessa was superb. Daisy went for the pork chop while I went for the duck dish. Both were massive portions which we couldn’t possibly finish, despite them being utterly delicious.
Defo need to get pictures of these food mountains…Someone even found space for a small sweet
A young couple arrived at the next table around the time our meal was served and ordered the exact same pairing of dishes, which we suspected was not as coincidence. We were having a great time, whereas they sat rather solemnly given the luxury of that restaurant experience.
Daisy (Janie) making an exhibition of herself at the Newport club
Mercifully a less action-packed day. We took it easy in the morning and ambled back to the Newport Club via some shops that Janie wanted to see and the wharf area where we took some pictures.
A Streetcar Named Fisher doesn’t have the same ring to it as A Streetcar Named DesireA street car that defies descriptionThey didn’t lie to us – not a spare court in the whole club
With the World Championship over, the afternoon was a far less formal affair, with the main combatants pairing up with Newport pros Tony Hollins and Josh Smith to play an exhibition doubles for us.
The lunch once again was very good and it gave us a chance to chat with some of the members, not least Paul, Chris, Noel, Ellen, Kelsey and Sarah who made us feel very welcome. We even met Sarah’s mum that afternoon.
The informal atmosphere enabled us to view some of the tennis from each of the Newport vantage points, which was a nice bonus.
By the time we got home for a rest ahead of the tournament dinner there was not much time, but still we (I) had a short rest and then we Ubered it to the Newport Beach House for the dinner.
We chatted with the young Lumley’s for a while over cocktails and then sat at a table for the meal with some very interesting people, including Jonathan Pardee to Janie’s right and an architect-regular-combatant of Jonathan’s to my left.
After dinner, we chatted with Freddy, Judith (Freddy’s mum) and Rob Lake for a while, until it dawned on us that we were almost the last people left around!
If the cap Fitz…some beards simply defy description
This turned out to be a crazily busy day but very enjoyable.
With the weather now restored to dry…even borderline sunny, and thinking that we’d get no other chance for exercise, we took a long, photogenic cliff walk.
Here’s our route…except we cannot take the start of this route…
…traversing the island to the forty steps, then being re-routed as a small chunk of the rout just south of the forty steps is being repaired…
Salve Regina……hac lacrimarum valle
…but then walking the cliff route past The Breakers, as far as The Marbles, then returning via Bellevue Avenue.
Less than two hours but more than 90 minutes of walking. Lots of photos.
Then, quick shower and change and off to the Newport Casino Theatre where I was to deliver my “1875 And All That” talk.
Nigel (above) prepares to hand the baton to me…
My talk seemed to go down well. I heard no snoring, no walking out in disgust and people were polite enough to say that they had enjoyed it. Judith, Freddy’s mum, was especially effusive in her praise.
Judith, effusive.
Here’s the very paper I presented – I talked through a little more than half of this paper:
We enjoyed the whole afternoon of talks, although only I had remembered my jumper and Janie was feeling the cold more than me, so I let her use the jumper while I suffered in near silence about the cold. Near silence, I said.
As the weather had improved, Janie and I enquired about playing tennis on the grass, only to discover that the place was so very fully booked out on the Saturday that our only sensible slot was 17:00 that afternoon. We worked out that we could still see the museum, dash home to change, dash back, play an hour of lawn, dash back to change again and still get to the conference dinner on time. So we agreed to do that and I handed over an infeasible guest fee for an hour of lawn and a clutch of tennis balls.
Me & Jimmy Conners (above), Janie & Steffi Graf (below)We gave the museum and the hall of fame a solid but quick once over
The museum tour was very interesting – well laid out in the modern style and with more space available than we have at Lord’s for the cricket equivalent. The International Tennis Hall Of Fame gallery was a bit of a highlight. The opportunity to chat with some of the other speakers and attendees of the conference while milling around the gallery was also a highlight. Janie and I took it at fairly high speed though, to ensure that our timings would allow us to fit in the prized extra item of an hour of lawn.
Freddy grabbed us for this photo op. as we arrived courtside in our whites
We were back in our whites about 15 minutes ahead of our slot. Kim in the pro’s shop took pity on us and showed us to a court that we could use straight away. “Centre Court” (ie the middle one of three) at the side of the court tennis building. We very much enjoyed our hour, playing alongside a friendly bunch of regulars who made us feel very welcome. It was a great honour, privilege (and expense) to have been able to play on the grass at Newport. A big tick on the bucket list.
Exhausted, but unbowed, we returned to the apartment, showered and changed there, then on by Uber to the Stoneacre Brasserie, where we dined with the conference crowd.
Sitting nearest to me and Janie: Michael Wooldridge, Adam Inselbuch, Nigel a Brassard, Marc Lewinstein, and Marc’s dog. All made for excellent conversation apart from the dog, who was very well behaved such that I didn’t even notice their presence until the end of the meal.
With the pre-tennis match reception starting no earlier than 13:00 (we planned to arrive a little later than that) we had time to visit one of the nearer mansions, The Elms, during an ingeniously-picked break in the almost-relentless rain that morning.
Some of the regular houses on the way to the mansion were quite grand.
We found the inside of the mansion rather hideous in its ostentation and faux-baroque grandeur…
…although the kitchens and gardens made the visit seem very much worthwhile.
As seen in The Gilded Age, apparently.
We resolved to take in the other mansions, all of which must be similar in most ways, by dint of a well planned cliff and street walk the next day, weather permitting.
Despite not being drowned like rats that morning, we still freshened up and choose to Uber it to the Newport Club rather than risk getting soaked in our glad rags.
We enjoyed a fine lunch and then witnessed, from the Club Room, Camden Riviere winning the World Championship again by taking three of the day’s four sets to complete the task 7-1 in just two days.
Want to see more than just a couple of photos? You can see all of the play on our day by clicking the link below. You can occasionally see me and Janie sitting up in the top right hand corner of the club room:
John Lumley put up a fine fight on that second day. It was a great honour and privilege to attend that day and to be on the court itself to see the trophy presented.
John Lumley (above) came an honourable second on Day Two.Tony Hollins rounded off the formalities
We returned to our apartment to change into more casual clothes, then went out to try a local restaurant with a good reputation for seafood – The Moorings. Obviously super-popular, even though it’s was out of season they had no tables, but could offer us full menu at the bar, which was very well appointed.
We ended up being served by a very interesting barman/maitre d, who seemed a bit suspicious of us at first, but once Janie asked him a question about the NFL football he became our best friend.
“Let me explain the offensive backfield in motion and offside penalty rules to you…”
Superb clam chowder and lobster rolls, with a fine Napa Valley Chardonnay. A very enjoyable evening.
We took a gazillion pictures that day. If you want to wade through all of that eye candy, then click the Flickr link here or below.
