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.
