Cape Cod

Anyone visit Cape Cod and have some favorite family experiences? Shopping? Restaurants? etc.

What about a good source for really cute (and not seductive) mermaid collectibles? Like jewelry, clothing, etc? Not The Little Mermaid please.

 

We go every year, and the best mermaids are found at the Cahoon Museum in Cotuit. Ralph Cahoon's old house is the museum, and is interesting in itself. He was the fellow who painted mermaids and sailors in an early-19th century semi-primitive style, interacting in scenes usually described as "whimsical". I have a couple of prints, one of geisha mermaids having blue-willow-patterned tea! They do have a gift shop with interesting items, and could point you to other places as well.

Don't miss Heritage Plantation in Sandwich. The old Eli Lilly estate has a round stone Shaker barn that is an antique car museum. The collection is extensive, well-maintained, and has knowledgeable volunteers. There is also an art museum there with a permanent collection of early Americana, including weathervanes, signage, stautues and paintings. Seasonal exhibits are usually quite good as well. In the same museum building on the grounds (along with a collection of carved carousel animals) is an indoor working carousel you can ride as many times as you want. Heaven for little ones! The grounds have a working windmill, and can be strolled through for hours, up and down hills, around a lake, through fields. Eat at the cafe or bring a picnic. The old owners bred daylillies and hostas (created many new varieties) and the grounds have literally hundreds of kinds of lillies and hostas, as well as beautiful mature specimen exotic trees. It's a gorgeous all-day event. Check the gift shop for plants: when they divide the hostas and lillies, they pot the extras and sell them for a few dollars each. I've brought some home that way in the car! While in Sandwich visit the Glass Museum if you like: great collection of early American glass.

Whalewatching is great from either Barnstable Harbor on the bay side, or from Provincetown. Barnstable is better unless you're staying closer to the elbow or tip--Provincetown is worth a whole day in itself, not only for Pilgrim Tower (definitely worth climbing ONCE), but for the amazing mix of eclectic shops and restaurants. Race Point Beach is there, with a great exhibit on early lifesaving, and beautiful views.

The southern beaches are much gentler, on the Sound. If you want real ocean action, Orleans is great. People legitimately surf there. Nauset Beach has FOUR lighthouses (a big one, and a cluster of three very small early ones), and lots of seals too.

Shopping: two large (for Cape Cod) malls, Hyannis and Mashpee. TONS of shops, ranging from haute couture and custom jewelry through antiques, a Grateful Dead/Rasta shop in Yarmouth (Chatham got crowded!) that is hippie heaven, hole in the wall fascinating specilty shops, and lots of t-shirt/swaetshirt outlets (no tax on clothes in MA). You'll see plenty to buy all over the place!

Food also goes from modest to haute. We always go to Baxter's in Hyannis at least once (no frills, GREAT seafood, and harbor view: watch the island ferries come and go, along with the commercial fishers and yachts!), and Tugboats (also Hyannis, a bit more up, and GREAT seafood). Wimpy's in Osterville has the best chowder, according to my husband. If you go there, go to Gone Chocolate for dessert, or Four Seas in Centerville next door. You can't swing a cat up there without hitting a good ice cream parlor.

The Cape Cod Melody Tent has all kinds of shows, and not a bad seat in the house. It is near the smaller Hyannis rotary (not near the Barnstable Airport one), and there is a fine place to eat right at the rotary called The Paddock. Expensive, but glorious.

There is a lot more public activity stuff to do from the shoulder to the elbow (Sandwich out to about Harwich and Dennis). Most of the townships from the elbow to the wrist (Chatham to Provincetown) are in the Cape Cod National Seashore, so by all means go, but it is an unspoiled outdoor kind of place, with much less in the way of food and bathrooms, if you are travelling with kids.

Best putt putt on the Cape: Pirate's Cove in Yarmouth.

Best short drive off Cape: Plimoth Plantation, which includes not only the living history on site, but a tour of the Mayflower II down at the Harbor in modern Plymouth. Fabulous all day activity. If you go, after you conclude the tour of the ship, turn around and look up the hill: you will see that the town's basic layout (shown in mud and wattle out at the Plantation) is still there! Go up Leyden Street to see what the Plantation really became.

More if you want! Have a GREAT time!

 

I forgot--if you go to Martha's Vineyard, go to Oak Bluffs! Best collection of shops, restaurants. Large open seaside park, the amazing village of revival cottages, ALL unique. Also, the Flying Horses Carousel--the oldest contually operated in the country! Have fun!

 

Funny, we just went two weekends ago. I definitely would go back. We were visiting some friends and their new baby and were short on time, but we did make it out to Provincetown. Loved it!! It's a can't miss, for sure. It's got all kinds of cool, unique shops. We spent time in "Puzzle Me This," a great toy store with stuff I've seen nowhere else. Of course, as first-time tourists, we couldn't resist the Black Dog merchandise store. Just window shopping was fun, too. It is very laid back, and a nice change to be in an openly tolerant community. (If you're a homophobe, you may want to stay away. We did get the, "Mommy, why is that man wearing a dress?" question from my daughter )

Another highlight was watching the sunset on the beach in Falmouth (although I'd recommend wearing long sleeves and long pants to avoid sandflea bites). And, of course, my daughter just loved playing in the sand and water at the beach in Chatham. It was really too cold for it, but she was none the worse for wear.

Have fun!

 

One thing to be sure to do is read the Cape Cod Times. Lots goes on that doesn't make it into the (excellent) tourist guide available free everywhere. Once when the kids were still in diapers, my mother-in-law got tickets to a benefit at the ice rink in Dennis, and Grampy watched the babies--so that we could go see Nancy Kerrigan and fellow Olympians skate at the local ice house! Kerrigan trained there, as do some others, and they put on a great show for the local venue's needs.

The paper provides an interesting perspective on local dynamics as well. There is an even larger and older struggle there between new and old than in Loudoun, with old going back to the Mayflower (and before, for the Wampanoags--go to Menemsha on the Vineyard for local Native American crafts--the Menemsha Wampanoag were just recently recognized as an official tribe by the Fed). "Come heres" and "washashores" are words you may encounter.

That is part of the dynamic that has made Provincetown fight so hard for its well-deserved title of "welcoming". To focus only on its historic Pilgrim past (first landing place of the Mayflower, hence the Pilgrim Tower monument) is to ignore its vibrant and successful present. To focus only on its status as a flourishing gay community and gay-friendly vacation spot is to ignore its significant past, which has never gone away, just blended with the new.

It is its very success as a gay-friendly vacation place that has caused the locals (both straight and gay) to work very hard to see that the town does remain welcoming for everyone--a few years ago there was an ongoing issue in the local press, where there had been incidents of gay tourists feeling a bit possessive about the town, and calling some straight tourists "breeders", among other things. The locals (again, both gay and straight) stamped that out in one hell of a hurry, because they ALL live there. No one gets harrassed , because that isn't what its about and EVERYBODY loses if it gets started.

We have a wind toy on our porch from the Wiccan Lesbians Against Breast Cancer gift shop in P-town. Whether that particular place is still there is up for grabs, because as a primarily resort community, businesses come and go in a heartbeat. The places I've mentioned in the previous post are pretty much landmarks, but use the free guide and read the Times, and you'll find plenty of great stuff to do. The Times may be available online, so you might want to check it out before you go.

If you go to Woods Hole (Oceanographic Institute and their museum--Dr. Robert Ballard's work on the Titanic!, aquarium--see the blue lobsters!, a beautiful lighthouse overlooking the Elizabeth Islands) DO NOT attempt to drive there. Go to Falmouth center, park and take a bus. Falmouth, by the way, home of Julia Ward Howe (Battle Hymn of the Republic).

Joy, don't you feel Loudoun is welcoming? Granted, the "I've got mine" attitude of some is less than generous, but I've met a lot of wonderful people here, both old and new. The Cape is great, isn't it?

 

Thank you SO MUCH FOR TAKING THE TIME to write up a great review. I really appreciate it!

 

My pleasure. I see your kids are small from another thread (mine are same age difference, but 11 and 13 now) so you may also want to try the Zooquarium in either Yarmouth or Harwich (near the boundary, can't remember which side!). We used to take ours there and they had a ball. Good aquarium, an outdoor small zoo (I think with some petting) that also has climb on constructions, and a seal/sea lion/dolphin show that is very kid-interactive. They call kids down to feed them fish and get a kiss--my daughter kissed a seal when she was about 5, and my son has kissed a dolphin.

Definitely Heritage in Sandwich. Lots of room to explore and run around, the car museum has a Model A or T that they are allowed to climb in and pretend to drive, and the full-size carousel at the Art Museum often has NO line, so the volunteers will let you stay on for ride after ride. One time when the others in our group were looking at the museum exhibit, I stayed on with the kids until they had ridden nearly every horse at least once.

The Cape is amazingly kid-friendly. Restaurants by-and-large accomodate children extremely well, with activity packs and buckets of crayons and the like. I hope you have a wonderful time, and post what you did and how it went when you get back.

 

Our family goes every year too! Don't miss the Wellfleet Drive-In: http://www.wellfleetdrivein.com (they have inside theaters too). There's also flea market held there every weekend and on Wednesday and Thursday in July & August.

 

jburrowshr and others--

Great article in today's Washington Post in Travel section regarding Cape Cod and surrounding areas. Good read--article is on lower front page of Travel section.

Foodie

 

kcchoi--that's where my bro-in-law goes when his family visits the grandparents! Even though we all stay in Barnstable, he always takes his daughter to whalewatch early in Provincetown, then they catch a movie at the drive-in on the way home. He says it can't be beat!

 

Mermaids for girls

Hello all. I have been doing some research on cute mermaid stuff for little girls and wanted to share. On the internet, I came up with a mermaid party idea http://family.go.com/parenting/article-MM-77707-Make-a-Splash-With-a-Mermaid-Themed-Bash-t/

and the most darling mermaid shirts for your little one - from a seller who has a store on eBay. I highly recommend her. CaliMom was kind, prompt, and great attention to detail. She even surprised me with additional attention to detail. Loved the bling on the shirts! Check out item number 280138773613 for specifics. I even think her shirts are cuter than Gymboree's sought after Coral Reef mermaid shirts. In under one 1/2 weeks I paid for, designed and received the most darling shirts with CaliMom. I bought a couple shirts for each of my daughters. They will be so excited to receive them on our beach vacation.

If you have a little girl who loves mermaids, check out the movie Aquamarine and the book Mermaid's Bracelet by Beth Harwood. My girls are really into mermaids at the moment. These are some of their favorites. Who knows when that will change...But at the moment I thought I would share since there are so many parents in the area. And fun birthday and holiday gifts are sometimes hard to come by!

 

FOLLOW UP:

Just returned from a great trip to Cape Cod. We stayed at an East Sandwich Beach House. Walking to the beach was a couple minutes. Beach was beautiful but cooler and rocky. No shells though. Great view all around. We love Sandwich, not crowded, quaint shops, close to mid cape area. Drives are very pretty with greenery instead of traffic all around you. Great spa at Dan'l Webster Inn and at the Cape Codder in Hyannis. Husband deep sea fished and caught Black Bass and some people caught Blue Fish. He had fun. Pirate Adventure kids cruise was really fun. Sunday Ice Cream Float is fun for the kids. Kandy Kitchen and Ben & Jerry's in Hyannis. Favorite shops are Cape Cod Mermaid in Dennisport, Alphabits in Barnstable, Holway House in Sandwich. Orleans Cape Cod Potato Chip tour is quick but enlightening and you get a free snack bag of chips. Don't miss Cuffy's for great quality sweatshirts etc. Flew into Providence (1 hour 15 minute flight) instead of 12 hour drive.

Ran out of time to do more, will spend longer next summer.