From Top to Bottom: Stowe (Vermont) to Marblehead (Massachusetts) in a Day
After our executive morning in Stowe, it was time to hit the road again and start to make our way south for our return to Boston. We had enjoyed the scenery of White Mountains in New Hampshire, so we decided to meander our way through Vermont's Green Mountains as well, with the rough plan to end up in Pioneer Valley for the evening, as our guidebook made it sound like a nice place to aim for.
The Green Mountains are very green indeed and less mountainous than the White Mountains. We drove through steepsided wooded valleys, rolling green hills and lush farmland, interspersed with small farming villages - including lots of craftshops and of course the ubiquitous American flag. We stopped in one of these villages for a late lunch in a surprisingly cool cafe: magazines, wifi access, organic produce and other urban comforts in effectively the middle of nowhere. We also passed through a village about to have its summer fete and were stared at by the entire village which had turned out to watch the annual homecoming parade that was about to start as we drove through (we could not quite work out who was coming home - soldiers, ex-residents, students on vacation?). All in all a pleasant afternoon's drive.
We entered Pioneer Valley late afternoon and were quite disappointed. If you have come from an urban area, the flat expanse of farmland and country side must be quite pleasant, but having come from the stunning scenery of the White and Green Mountains, Pioneer Vally was unfortunately a bit plain and dull.
Luckily, we were in for a nice surprise. When we picked up a mobile phone signal for the first time in days, we discovered that our friends Maisie and Josh were near Boston for the weekend. We had been sad to miss seeing them by skipping New York in our itinerary, so, although it was getting late, jumped at this second chance and decided to drive the extra few hundred kilometres on to Marblehead, just north of Boston. We'd seen enough of Pioneer Valley by then anyway.
Our drive to Marblehead took us through Salem, and this time we did manage to find it, and although it looked like a nice town, we found Marblehead a lot more scenic. We arrived at the town square around 20:30 with nowhere to stay for the night. Conveniently, the tourist information hut in the middle of town had a list of B&Bs pinned up on its door and we set out to phone each of them until we found somewhere, watched by the local youth from the comforts of their bus shelter. Finding a bed in mid-summer on a Saturday night in a beautiful spot near a big city is not the easiest thing to do, and a lot of B&B owners sounded almost shocked when we asked whether they had any availability (which was a bit worrying), but eventually we found a B&B within walking distance from the harbour. They only had their honeymoon suite available, and according the the landlady, the remainder of the rooms were taken by sailors. We were not quite sure whether that was a good or a bad thing, but at that stage we were glad to have found a bed at all.
After dumping our stuff and having a quick chat to the couple who owned the B&B, we headed for the harbour and met up with Maisie and Josh at The Landing, a bar with a lot of character and a lot of noise, situated right on the shoreline. Why do American bars always have to have TVs in the corner and music so loud it is only possible to talk to one person at a time? Nevertheless, we had a great time catching up, enjoying the local summer ale and sampling some of the local seafood.
At breakfast the next morning, the sailors turned out to be of the rich, yacht-owning variety. As Marblehead has a harbour full of expensive yachts, this cannot have been that unusual, so maybe the landlady was just trying to make conversation when she told us about the sailors. The landlady was quite surprised and almost disappointed when she found out we like coffee with our breakfast. She was very proud to have what she called "real tea" in stock, brought to her by a friend of hers from Liverpool. However, as her coffee was very good, we let her save the tea for someone that needed it more than we did. After a superb breakfast, we were ready to head for Boston, but not before we had sampled a bit of Marblehead by daylight.
The Green Mountains are very green indeed and less mountainous than the White Mountains. We drove through steepsided wooded valleys, rolling green hills and lush farmland, interspersed with small farming villages - including lots of craftshops and of course the ubiquitous American flag. We stopped in one of these villages for a late lunch in a surprisingly cool cafe: magazines, wifi access, organic produce and other urban comforts in effectively the middle of nowhere. We also passed through a village about to have its summer fete and were stared at by the entire village which had turned out to watch the annual homecoming parade that was about to start as we drove through (we could not quite work out who was coming home - soldiers, ex-residents, students on vacation?). All in all a pleasant afternoon's drive.
We entered Pioneer Valley late afternoon and were quite disappointed. If you have come from an urban area, the flat expanse of farmland and country side must be quite pleasant, but having come from the stunning scenery of the White and Green Mountains, Pioneer Vally was unfortunately a bit plain and dull.
Luckily, we were in for a nice surprise. When we picked up a mobile phone signal for the first time in days, we discovered that our friends Maisie and Josh were near Boston for the weekend. We had been sad to miss seeing them by skipping New York in our itinerary, so, although it was getting late, jumped at this second chance and decided to drive the extra few hundred kilometres on to Marblehead, just north of Boston. We'd seen enough of Pioneer Valley by then anyway.
Our drive to Marblehead took us through Salem, and this time we did manage to find it, and although it looked like a nice town, we found Marblehead a lot more scenic. We arrived at the town square around 20:30 with nowhere to stay for the night. Conveniently, the tourist information hut in the middle of town had a list of B&Bs pinned up on its door and we set out to phone each of them until we found somewhere, watched by the local youth from the comforts of their bus shelter. Finding a bed in mid-summer on a Saturday night in a beautiful spot near a big city is not the easiest thing to do, and a lot of B&B owners sounded almost shocked when we asked whether they had any availability (which was a bit worrying), but eventually we found a B&B within walking distance from the harbour. They only had their honeymoon suite available, and according the the landlady, the remainder of the rooms were taken by sailors. We were not quite sure whether that was a good or a bad thing, but at that stage we were glad to have found a bed at all.
After dumping our stuff and having a quick chat to the couple who owned the B&B, we headed for the harbour and met up with Maisie and Josh at The Landing, a bar with a lot of character and a lot of noise, situated right on the shoreline. Why do American bars always have to have TVs in the corner and music so loud it is only possible to talk to one person at a time? Nevertheless, we had a great time catching up, enjoying the local summer ale and sampling some of the local seafood.
At breakfast the next morning, the sailors turned out to be of the rich, yacht-owning variety. As Marblehead has a harbour full of expensive yachts, this cannot have been that unusual, so maybe the landlady was just trying to make conversation when she told us about the sailors. The landlady was quite surprised and almost disappointed when she found out we like coffee with our breakfast. She was very proud to have what she called "real tea" in stock, brought to her by a friend of hers from Liverpool. However, as her coffee was very good, we let her save the tea for someone that needed it more than we did. After a superb breakfast, we were ready to head for Boston, but not before we had sampled a bit of Marblehead by daylight.
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