(no subject)
I've long said that the best thing about a 3-day weekend is the following 4-day work week. What's better than that, though, is coming back from a 10-day vacation to a 4-day work week, FOLLOWED by a 3-day weekend. Yes, that is pretty awesome.
New England was fantastic, although it's a trip that I probably wouldn't have appreciated when I was younger. We saw a lot of history, and many of the places we stayed were short on modern conveniences and long on "charm". Still, I have some great memories from the trip as a whole, and I'd definitely like to revisit some of the places that we saw.
The first day that we were there was the only day that I had really planned out, almost minute-by-minute. We were gonna drive from our hotel in Boston to have an early lunch in Provincetown, which is on the very end of Cape Cod. Then we were gonna go Whale Watching, followed by a somewhat early dinner, making our way down to the southern part of the cape to check in to our B&B for the night. Well, as luck would have it, there were gale-force winds when we got to Provincetown, and our Whale Watching trip was canceled. So we wandered around for a bit, eventually making our way to the Pilgrim monument and museum. Then we discovered where the shopping areas were in town, and walked up and down those streets. We had lunch at the place we were GOING to have dinner at, Level Bistro, and it was delicious. Michelle can and will probably go into more detail on the food, and she's also working on a picture post.
After lunch and a bit more wandering, we decided to head back down the coast to our little B&B. I chose The Inn at One Main because of its proximity to Martha's Vineyard, as well as its price, and the delicious-sounding breakfasts that the guide book provided. It was a VERY small place, with I think a total of 7 rooms. Being the off-season, we were the only couple there, so breakfast the following morning was a bit odd (although as scrumptious as the book said it would be). Since we actually made it back earlier than planned, we took a nap and hit the "town" for dinner. We landed at The Roo Bar, which was again a treat (you'll find that this was a common theme of our trip). Although I was a little disappointed when we got our salads only to find out that they were DINNER-sized salads, and not, as was promised. It made my burger and polenta-fries (you head me right) impossible to finish.
The following day (I think we're at Sunday now) we had breakfast at the Inn, then grabbed our complimentary ferry passes and jetted off to Martha's Vineyard. We really lucked out with the weather, which had been overcast and ugly. It was sunny with a light breeze, and although it only got into the 60's, it was perfect bike-riding weather. Which was lucky, because bike-riding is the mode of transportation of choice on Martha's Vineyard. After renting a pair (of bikes), we made our way down the coast and had lunch at Slice of Life which was phenomenal (I'm gonna run out of synonyms soon!). We did some window shopping, hit up the arcade, and rode on America's oldest merry go round. We then headed a little further south and took a look around there. As we were walking around, a woman in a convertible yelled out "I saw you two in Provincetown yesterday!" Okay stalker... :) I guess the two of us cut quite the memorable pair? We finished up our day in MV with dinner at a little pizza/sandwich place, which despite being plastic silverware worthy, was exactly the kind of food we needed.
Monday, after a quick breakfast, we took off for New Haven, and all the sights to see there. Turns out that New Haven is basically Yale, with enough commerce to support the students. We had lunch at what I THOUGHT was the best pizza place as recommended by the guide book, but apparently we didn't travel far enough down the street. So instead of eating at Modern Apizza, we had a perfectly decent sausage and rapini pizza at Amato's Apizza (I'm now thinking that the "apizza" thing was done intentionally to throw off travellers). We wandered around New Haven, taking in all the fantastic architecture that was Yale, and noticing that churches in New England what Starbucks are out here. In that tiny town we saw something like 11 churches, many within a block or less of each other. It was moving out day (or week), so we got to enjoy the failure of city planning that took place before the presence of cars. That was fun. We had a couple of beers at a local bar, watched some smart kids shoot pool, then had dinner at a place that we happened upon in our travels. Turns out we got lucky, 'cause Monday nights at Scoozi was 50% wine bottle night. Score! Nothing like a half-priced bottle of wine to go with your fantastic italian food.
Since we had managed to do New Haven in a day, we took Tuesday and drove up to Hartford. Capital cities are always a hoot. We visited the historic Mark Twain house and the equally historic Harriet Beecher Stowe house. Visiting there kinda made me wish that I had read anything by either of them, but it was still neat to learn about their history. Plus I've got a thing for houses these days. We had lunch at a forgettable BBQ place in Hartford, then made our way back to New Haven. Following several days of very rich food, and not having been terribly enamored with any other dining options in New Haven, we decided to have leftovers in our hotel room and watch TV.
Wednesday we drove up to Montpelier Vermont, another charming capital city. This one is I think 2 square miles, and is the only capital city in America without a single McDonald's! Actually the town seems to be pretty aggressively pro-local businesses, so the only franchises that we saw while we were there were a Ben & Jerry's (Vermont, duh) and a Subway. I was thoroughly charmed by our inn, aptly named The Inn at Montpelier. It had the feel of a D&D-type Inn, with common areas, a dining room, and a nice big porch to hang out on. The town is very cute, but really there's nothing to do there, and after a little over an hour, we had walked the entirety of it. We decided on dinner at Main Street Grill, which was connected to the New England Culinary Institute. The prices were very reasonable for what was being offered, which should have tipped us off. I ordered Veal Osso Bucco, and Michelle ordered a braised beef rib, both of which came out tough and woefully undercooked. If I had thought about it, I would have sent it back and ordered a pasta dish instead, 'cause it was really really bad.
Thursday we made a quick trip over to the place which was our entire reason for being in Vermont, the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory. We got a tour for $3, and got to see how their ice cream was made, as well as a free tasting of the flavor du jour (which happened to be the sickeningly-sweet strawberry cheesecake). The tour itself was fun, but I think the best part was visiting the flavor graveyard, where all the retired and dead flavors went. Seeing flavors like Sweet Potato Pie and Plum made me glad that I missed these attempts. After a quick lunch at a local pizza joint, we were off to New Hampshire, and the last leg of our trip.
Portsmouth wound up being very charming, and had a lot of character without being terribly touristy. The place that we stayed in, Martin Hill Inn was pleasant, and I really liked our innkeeper, but the room was unfortunately placed. It was on the top floor, so it got very warm at night, but any open windows let in a LOT of noise from the main drag. Still, having a tub that was just big enough for two people was nice. Dinner was again a triumph at Victory, where we again lucked out with 25% of all bottles of wine! We had wandered through the town in the afternoon and had seen several places which looked merely okay, but Victory had the right menu for both of us. Afterwards we landed at a little corner coffee shop that had a lot of outdoor seating. Being as it was on the main drag, this meant a perfect spot for people watching.
Friday we had breakfast at the inn and wandered around town for a bit more before taking off for Boston. We drove up to Maine for a bit (which was right across the water from where we were staying) and checked out a few choice areas. Lovely place, but I don't think I'd want to live there in the winter. I managed to pick a winner of a weekend to spend in Boston, because there were no fewer than 6 universities having their graduation ceremonies that weekend, which of course meant that every single hotel, inn, B&B, and motel were booked solid. I managed to find a room at the Seaport Hotel which, fortuitously, was right on the transit line that would take us to the airport, but at a price that was almost 3x what I had been paying for our other hotels. On the plus side, it was nice to spend the last few days of our trip in luxury. Granted the towels weren't 3x as soft, the room wasn't 3x as big, and the view wasn't 3x as nice. But there were a lot of little things, like a bathroom mirror that de-fogged itself, a showerhead that spat out water like from a fire hose, and a nice king-sized bed with linens that were fantastically warm.
Boston itself was a treat. We spent the majority of the first day there walking the Freedom Trail, which for those of you who don't know, is a trail that's actually marked on the street by a red brick line which takes you to all the historic landmarks in Boston, like Paul Revere's house and Bunker Hill. It was really cool to learn about all that history, and as I said, probably wouldn't have been something that I could have appreciated as a teenager. We braved Little Italy for dinner and waited an epic amount of time for a table at Limoncello, which wound up being well worth the wait. The place was packed to the gills, and the ACTUAL Italians who were running the place came complete with gold chains, grey suits, sausage fingers, and thick accents. I was actually wondering if the place had a mob backing, but after eating there I'm pretty sure it was just another high-end Italian restaurant. Our second day in Boston we decided to take a Duck Tour, which utilized decommissioned amphibious military boats/trucks to give you a whirlwind tour of the city. It was a lot of fun, and gave some more up-to-date info about the city than we learned on our walking tour of the Freedom Trail. We also took the T (Boston's underground rail system) to visit Northeastern (where we had missed my sister by a scant 3 weeks) and Harvard Universities. I can definitely see why Kylie chose Boston to go to school in. It's a fantastic city, and since there are so many colleges in the area, the population is decidedly younger than most US cities. Plus the mass transit system is fan-TASTIC! It would rival London and Paris, except that I think the European trains were nicer and newer. Still, I don't think we ever had to wait more than 10 minutes for a train, and we could cover the entire city in under an hour. I really wish San Jose was built so that a mass transit system like that. Such is the price for living in suburbia. Dinner on our last night was yet another find, Myers and Chang was actually discovered by Michelle while watching the "Boston" channel in our hotel room and falling in love with the dumplings that were being made right before her eyes. Turns out she made a good choice, because the flavors were delightful and experimental without being over-the-top. The restaurant itself had a nice irreverent attitude about it, probably stemming from the fact that from the waist down it looked like a run-of-the-mill diner, and from the waist up it felt like a very hip chinese restaurant.
The flight that I chose to get us out of Boston left at 6 am, which meant a 3 am wakeup time. Sad to say, our good fortune of being located right on the T line that would take us to the airport didn't mean much when the trains didn't start running until 5 am. Still, the cab ride was quick and not terribly expensive. And we didn't have to deal with much traffic at that hour on a Monday. Our cabbie said that we were basically gonna be his last fare for the entire summer. Once all the schools let out, the population in Boston drops by 100k or more. I can see that as kind of sucking for a lot of businesses.
So that was our trip, cut to save your Friends' page. A lot of what stuck out in my mind was the food, but simply being in that part of America, with all that rich history was incredible. It was also cool to be on a vacation that I had planned out, rather than traveling with family. I think it was successful, although in hindsight I would have planned a few things differently, namely that we could have probably stayed only one night in New Haven. Still, if you haven't yet, I suggest making a trip like ours sometime in the near future. Summers are the busy times in Cape Cod, and Winters are when every New Yorker goes skiing in Vermont, but springtime is juuuust right! :)
New England was fantastic, although it's a trip that I probably wouldn't have appreciated when I was younger. We saw a lot of history, and many of the places we stayed were short on modern conveniences and long on "charm". Still, I have some great memories from the trip as a whole, and I'd definitely like to revisit some of the places that we saw.
The first day that we were there was the only day that I had really planned out, almost minute-by-minute. We were gonna drive from our hotel in Boston to have an early lunch in Provincetown, which is on the very end of Cape Cod. Then we were gonna go Whale Watching, followed by a somewhat early dinner, making our way down to the southern part of the cape to check in to our B&B for the night. Well, as luck would have it, there were gale-force winds when we got to Provincetown, and our Whale Watching trip was canceled. So we wandered around for a bit, eventually making our way to the Pilgrim monument and museum. Then we discovered where the shopping areas were in town, and walked up and down those streets. We had lunch at the place we were GOING to have dinner at, Level Bistro, and it was delicious. Michelle can and will probably go into more detail on the food, and she's also working on a picture post.
After lunch and a bit more wandering, we decided to head back down the coast to our little B&B. I chose The Inn at One Main because of its proximity to Martha's Vineyard, as well as its price, and the delicious-sounding breakfasts that the guide book provided. It was a VERY small place, with I think a total of 7 rooms. Being the off-season, we were the only couple there, so breakfast the following morning was a bit odd (although as scrumptious as the book said it would be). Since we actually made it back earlier than planned, we took a nap and hit the "town" for dinner. We landed at The Roo Bar, which was again a treat (you'll find that this was a common theme of our trip). Although I was a little disappointed when we got our salads only to find out that they were DINNER-sized salads, and not, as was promised. It made my burger and polenta-fries (you head me right) impossible to finish.
The following day (I think we're at Sunday now) we had breakfast at the Inn, then grabbed our complimentary ferry passes and jetted off to Martha's Vineyard. We really lucked out with the weather, which had been overcast and ugly. It was sunny with a light breeze, and although it only got into the 60's, it was perfect bike-riding weather. Which was lucky, because bike-riding is the mode of transportation of choice on Martha's Vineyard. After renting a pair (of bikes), we made our way down the coast and had lunch at Slice of Life which was phenomenal (I'm gonna run out of synonyms soon!). We did some window shopping, hit up the arcade, and rode on America's oldest merry go round. We then headed a little further south and took a look around there. As we were walking around, a woman in a convertible yelled out "I saw you two in Provincetown yesterday!" Okay stalker... :) I guess the two of us cut quite the memorable pair? We finished up our day in MV with dinner at a little pizza/sandwich place, which despite being plastic silverware worthy, was exactly the kind of food we needed.
Monday, after a quick breakfast, we took off for New Haven, and all the sights to see there. Turns out that New Haven is basically Yale, with enough commerce to support the students. We had lunch at what I THOUGHT was the best pizza place as recommended by the guide book, but apparently we didn't travel far enough down the street. So instead of eating at Modern Apizza, we had a perfectly decent sausage and rapini pizza at Amato's Apizza (I'm now thinking that the "apizza" thing was done intentionally to throw off travellers). We wandered around New Haven, taking in all the fantastic architecture that was Yale, and noticing that churches in New England what Starbucks are out here. In that tiny town we saw something like 11 churches, many within a block or less of each other. It was moving out day (or week), so we got to enjoy the failure of city planning that took place before the presence of cars. That was fun. We had a couple of beers at a local bar, watched some smart kids shoot pool, then had dinner at a place that we happened upon in our travels. Turns out we got lucky, 'cause Monday nights at Scoozi was 50% wine bottle night. Score! Nothing like a half-priced bottle of wine to go with your fantastic italian food.
Since we had managed to do New Haven in a day, we took Tuesday and drove up to Hartford. Capital cities are always a hoot. We visited the historic Mark Twain house and the equally historic Harriet Beecher Stowe house. Visiting there kinda made me wish that I had read anything by either of them, but it was still neat to learn about their history. Plus I've got a thing for houses these days. We had lunch at a forgettable BBQ place in Hartford, then made our way back to New Haven. Following several days of very rich food, and not having been terribly enamored with any other dining options in New Haven, we decided to have leftovers in our hotel room and watch TV.
Wednesday we drove up to Montpelier Vermont, another charming capital city. This one is I think 2 square miles, and is the only capital city in America without a single McDonald's! Actually the town seems to be pretty aggressively pro-local businesses, so the only franchises that we saw while we were there were a Ben & Jerry's (Vermont, duh) and a Subway. I was thoroughly charmed by our inn, aptly named The Inn at Montpelier. It had the feel of a D&D-type Inn, with common areas, a dining room, and a nice big porch to hang out on. The town is very cute, but really there's nothing to do there, and after a little over an hour, we had walked the entirety of it. We decided on dinner at Main Street Grill, which was connected to the New England Culinary Institute. The prices were very reasonable for what was being offered, which should have tipped us off. I ordered Veal Osso Bucco, and Michelle ordered a braised beef rib, both of which came out tough and woefully undercooked. If I had thought about it, I would have sent it back and ordered a pasta dish instead, 'cause it was really really bad.
Thursday we made a quick trip over to the place which was our entire reason for being in Vermont, the Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream Factory. We got a tour for $3, and got to see how their ice cream was made, as well as a free tasting of the flavor du jour (which happened to be the sickeningly-sweet strawberry cheesecake). The tour itself was fun, but I think the best part was visiting the flavor graveyard, where all the retired and dead flavors went. Seeing flavors like Sweet Potato Pie and Plum made me glad that I missed these attempts. After a quick lunch at a local pizza joint, we were off to New Hampshire, and the last leg of our trip.
Portsmouth wound up being very charming, and had a lot of character without being terribly touristy. The place that we stayed in, Martin Hill Inn was pleasant, and I really liked our innkeeper, but the room was unfortunately placed. It was on the top floor, so it got very warm at night, but any open windows let in a LOT of noise from the main drag. Still, having a tub that was just big enough for two people was nice. Dinner was again a triumph at Victory, where we again lucked out with 25% of all bottles of wine! We had wandered through the town in the afternoon and had seen several places which looked merely okay, but Victory had the right menu for both of us. Afterwards we landed at a little corner coffee shop that had a lot of outdoor seating. Being as it was on the main drag, this meant a perfect spot for people watching.
Friday we had breakfast at the inn and wandered around town for a bit more before taking off for Boston. We drove up to Maine for a bit (which was right across the water from where we were staying) and checked out a few choice areas. Lovely place, but I don't think I'd want to live there in the winter. I managed to pick a winner of a weekend to spend in Boston, because there were no fewer than 6 universities having their graduation ceremonies that weekend, which of course meant that every single hotel, inn, B&B, and motel were booked solid. I managed to find a room at the Seaport Hotel which, fortuitously, was right on the transit line that would take us to the airport, but at a price that was almost 3x what I had been paying for our other hotels. On the plus side, it was nice to spend the last few days of our trip in luxury. Granted the towels weren't 3x as soft, the room wasn't 3x as big, and the view wasn't 3x as nice. But there were a lot of little things, like a bathroom mirror that de-fogged itself, a showerhead that spat out water like from a fire hose, and a nice king-sized bed with linens that were fantastically warm.
Boston itself was a treat. We spent the majority of the first day there walking the Freedom Trail, which for those of you who don't know, is a trail that's actually marked on the street by a red brick line which takes you to all the historic landmarks in Boston, like Paul Revere's house and Bunker Hill. It was really cool to learn about all that history, and as I said, probably wouldn't have been something that I could have appreciated as a teenager. We braved Little Italy for dinner and waited an epic amount of time for a table at Limoncello, which wound up being well worth the wait. The place was packed to the gills, and the ACTUAL Italians who were running the place came complete with gold chains, grey suits, sausage fingers, and thick accents. I was actually wondering if the place had a mob backing, but after eating there I'm pretty sure it was just another high-end Italian restaurant. Our second day in Boston we decided to take a Duck Tour, which utilized decommissioned amphibious military boats/trucks to give you a whirlwind tour of the city. It was a lot of fun, and gave some more up-to-date info about the city than we learned on our walking tour of the Freedom Trail. We also took the T (Boston's underground rail system) to visit Northeastern (where we had missed my sister by a scant 3 weeks) and Harvard Universities. I can definitely see why Kylie chose Boston to go to school in. It's a fantastic city, and since there are so many colleges in the area, the population is decidedly younger than most US cities. Plus the mass transit system is fan-TASTIC! It would rival London and Paris, except that I think the European trains were nicer and newer. Still, I don't think we ever had to wait more than 10 minutes for a train, and we could cover the entire city in under an hour. I really wish San Jose was built so that a mass transit system like that. Such is the price for living in suburbia. Dinner on our last night was yet another find, Myers and Chang was actually discovered by Michelle while watching the "Boston" channel in our hotel room and falling in love with the dumplings that were being made right before her eyes. Turns out she made a good choice, because the flavors were delightful and experimental without being over-the-top. The restaurant itself had a nice irreverent attitude about it, probably stemming from the fact that from the waist down it looked like a run-of-the-mill diner, and from the waist up it felt like a very hip chinese restaurant.
The flight that I chose to get us out of Boston left at 6 am, which meant a 3 am wakeup time. Sad to say, our good fortune of being located right on the T line that would take us to the airport didn't mean much when the trains didn't start running until 5 am. Still, the cab ride was quick and not terribly expensive. And we didn't have to deal with much traffic at that hour on a Monday. Our cabbie said that we were basically gonna be his last fare for the entire summer. Once all the schools let out, the population in Boston drops by 100k or more. I can see that as kind of sucking for a lot of businesses.
So that was our trip, cut to save your Friends' page. A lot of what stuck out in my mind was the food, but simply being in that part of America, with all that rich history was incredible. It was also cool to be on a vacation that I had planned out, rather than traveling with family. I think it was successful, although in hindsight I would have planned a few things differently, namely that we could have probably stayed only one night in New Haven. Still, if you haven't yet, I suggest making a trip like ours sometime in the near future. Summers are the busy times in Cape Cod, and Winters are when every New Yorker goes skiing in Vermont, but springtime is juuuust right! :)