23.7.2012 – 23.7.2012  29 °C

After a sleep in we headed up the coast towards Provincetown, Cape Cod. Provincetown is about 30 mins away but because of a few stops it took a bit longer! I had in my head that Provincetown was going to be a bit like Key West so I was pretty excited to see the town. Our first stop on the drive up to Provincetown was to see one of the Cape lighthouses (which is no longer in use). We arrived to discover that the car park is actually the golf course’s car park. At some stage the golf course grew around the light house! The light house itself wasn’t open at the time that we arrived so we had a look at the light and the sea shore before we continued our drive northward towards Provincetown.

The drive up to the town was via the bay side sea shore so I got to see more of my ideal “grey” coloured Cape Cod houses. In fact, just before we got to Cape Cod we passed thru a whole town of these types of houses! Yep, they are drab, grey and a bit boring looking but they are my image of Cape Cod!!

On arrival into Provincetown itself, we were greeted by streets and streets filled with traffic! I think every person on Cape Cod was trying to get into Provincetown today.. Absolutely nuts! Considering the traffic woes (and the parking situation) we decided to drive right thru town and out to the absolute end point of Cape Cod. The tip of the Cape is a part of the National Sea Shore so we stopped into the visitor centre to get a better view of the ocean. The visitor centre has a great viewing platform (on the roof) where on good days you can see whales frolicking in the Atlantic… I had my eyes peeled but couldn’t see any!! We also stopped and asked the ranger about this type of rose bush we kept seeing on the shoreline. Apparently it is a type of rose that loves salty air! It is strange looking (its foliage reminds me of a strawberry plant and the flower is old style rose bush) but everywhere so must be a bit of weed! It is nice though to see pretty pink flowers along the sand dunes!!

After spending some time on the beach (jumper on mind you!) we drove back into Provincetown hunting a cup of coffee. We found ourselves a park and went for a wander in this old town. Provincetown is actually close to where the pilgrims originally tried to land and start growing crops.. Settlers did return to Provincetown but not for a few years after that first tragic winter. The town itself doesn’t match Key West but does have its own personality. The town itself is much older so the streets are quite narrow and it doesn’t have the clean newly painted feel that Key West has but it certainly has a fishing village character. We found our coffee and wandered along the boardwalk out to another 4 masted ship. I stopped off to talk to a photographer and got some tips and tricks on printing my own photos.. I may have to have a crack at printing and framing my own shots I think when I get back!!

From Provincetown we took the freeway straight off the island (much quicker to exit than it took us to enter!!) and down towards Newport, Rhode Island… Newport was one of those places that we all sort of wanted to see but had all agreed if we didn’t get time we wouldn’t bother… We didn’t really have the time to see it but we decided to do a drive thru of the town and at least get a bit of an overview of the town itself. All I knew about Newport (before driving thru) was that it was home to the America’s cup and was probably a rich-ish town….. Rich-ish does not do justice to Newport! It has more mansions and castles (they are even called that) then I have seen anywhere else in the world within a couple of square miles—it even gives Beverly Hills a run for its money!

There is this one street, Belleview, (it’s one of the main ones) that is just block after block of HUGE houses with big backyards.. It really is indescribable.. Some of the houses are owned by the preservation committee of Newport and are open for tours but most are still private residences! I was shocked by the opulence and pervading stench of MONEY… Honestly, the citizens of this town must have a per capita income higher than some third world countries (well, I might be exaggerating there.. but not by much!) Anyway, to try and describe Newport… A small town (Kingscliffe sized) with humungous brick mansions and beautiful old elm trees, big brick fences. Newport is on a peninsular of Rhode Island so on all sides of these ginormous houses is the ocean. It is a rocky peninsular so some of the mansions actually have granite rocks in their back yards instead of trees.. Kind of funny when you see where they have had to build their monstrosities so that they didn’t have to dynamite/ dig thru the granite!

After we had ogled the homes of the ridiculously rich (maybe not necessarily famous) we continued around the peninsular hunting the world famous New York yacht club.. I’m not sure that we actually ever found it, but there are more marinas and BIG yachts in Newport than I’ve seen anywhere else, so I’m guessing one of them must be the world famous New York yacht club!

All in all our drive thru Newport was an eye opener.. I mean I know that they are some very wealthy people in the US but I didn’t realise til today how rich some of them actually are! When you start seeing horses and paddocks on prime coast front Newport real estate, you start to understand that rich doesn’t really describe these people………..

Our day ended with us driving into Mystic, Connecticut (not even forty minutes away from Newport—and that’s one side of Rhode Island to the other!!) and crashing for the night in a cheap but nice Quality Inn… It’s New York day tomorrow so we need our energy to cope with the Manhattan traffic!!

Song of the Day– Good Charlotte, Lifestyles of the rich and the famous