I’m going to be visiting Boston and Cape Cod shortly, along with Myself.*
I’ve checked out the threads on the area in the past, but thought I could ask for an update. We’re interested in your ideas about things we might see, and - especially - places to eat we might not find ourselves. I can’t say money is no object; we do try to have one meal in an upscale place when we travel - but places in the mid-range would be the most useful (and being from San Francisco, our mid-range is perhaps a little higher than some.) I am a big fan of diners and places that do an exceptional breakfast.
Info about the Cape would also be a help, as I didn’t find any threads specific to there. We’ve got a place to stay and will be seeing friends/family for part of the trip. What should we make an effort to see while there?
Thanks for any thoughts! We leave on Sunday, so I have a couple of days to check for responses.
yes, he chose that name just to make for these awkward sentences
Boston is blessed with lots of good restaurants-as for accomodations, the local hotels are experiencing a slump-occupancy rates are down, so you can bargain. I warn you-Boston is a great town by foot-not by car (parking is scarce and expensive). You can see most of the interesting stuff on foot, and by public transit. As for cape Cod, it is nice-avoid Hyannis, and stick to Troro, Brewster, Chatham, and Provincetown.
As I said, eat at the smaller places-food is better and cheaper.
Despite having lived in or around Boston for my entire life, I’ve never done a lot of touristy stuff downtown (duckboats, walking tours, etc.), so I don’t have a lot of advice on that.
Should you be interested in funky theatre, I recommend The Boston Center for the Arts, located in the South End. www.bcaonline.org That also happens to be an area where there are a ton of great restaurants, either right at the BCA or within easy walking distance. Just to name a couple that I’ve personally eaten at and enjoyed:
Hamersly’s (up-scale)
The Beehive (funky mid-range)
Tremont 647 (mid-range)
All of those have outdoor seating, which is nice at night this time of year.
The best steak I’ve ever eaten was at Grill 23, just a couple blocks away. It’s an upscale steak house, so you’ll want reservations and a fat wallet. I recommend the porterhouse.
Try to go the Cape mid-week, the traffic will be much lighter then. There are two ways to see the Cape–via the interstate highway, which is not scenic, but has the advantage of actually having traffic move on it, or via the (essentially) 2 lane “back” roads which are incredibly scenic, but also clogged with traffic and traffic lights etc. To get on the Cape on a Friday afternoon is hell. To leave the Cape on a Sunday afternoon, ditto. I’d say that if you want to get to Provincetown, you’re going to want to take the interstate as far as you can. It once took us 6 hours to get to P-town from Falmouth, taking the secondary roads. Invest in a good road map.
Beware the rotaries–these are similar to the circuses in London. It’s chaos at high speeds–watch for your exit!
I’d say go to CC National Seashore, and perhaps whale watching from Barnstable. Best thing to do is stop at a rest stop on the interstate and get the brochures for Stuff To Do on Cape Cod. There’s tons. Season prices can be high, but I doubt you’ll have sticker shock coming from San Francisco.
You can try the Landfall restaurant in Woods Hole–the quality was quite high (seafood, family restaurant), but last time I went there, I was disappointed (last summer). It’s right near the ferry docking to Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket. There are also some very nice “yupp-iesh” cafes etc in Wood’s Hole(which is essentially one long street).
My parents own a summer house in Falmouth which also has some nice lunch places etc. I doubt you’ll have trouble finding nice restaurants on the Cape…
And don’t forget Salem, MA–it’s close enough to Boston that you can go see the very well put together exhibit on the witch trials while you’re in Boston. Plymouth Rock is overrated. “Plimoth” plantation is mildly interesting, IMO, if you like watching grad students oddly dressed, sweating a lot.
Since you’re from the West Coast, I wonder - have you looked at the various rock beaches there? If so, take the time to take a look at some New England rock beaches. Very different ecology, and many different parallel evolution critters.
And if you’re life-long West Coasters, you’ll have never seen one of these living fossils in the flesh, so to speak. Until I had a chance to see some rock beaches along US 1 I never realized just how limited in range horseshoe crabs actually are.
Spend an hour or two window shopping along the quaint main street with its many little shops.
Go to Chatham Bars Inn at about 5pm for a drink (a drink only, food is overpriced).
Take your drink and sit on the large patio overlooking Pleasant Bay, the outer bar, and the Atlantic beyond.
When you’ve had enough of that, go back to the little downtown (all of 3 blocks away), and eat at The Chatham Squire. Great food, nice people, right price. The fried clams are particularly good IMHO.
We vacationed in Mass. just a few weeks ago. I’ll second that Plymouth isn’t that great. If you can swing a day trip to Newport, RI from where you’re staying, do it! We liked Newport a lot - the Cliff Walk is nice and the Gilded Era “summer cottages” are amazing. Probably best to do it on a weekday if you can to avoid the crowds.
With Boston you want to check out the standard tourist areas:
Beacon Hill
North End
Freedom Trail
Quincy Markey / Faneuil Hall
Boston Common / Public Garden
Back Bay / Boyston Street / Newbury Street / Copley Plaza
Fenway
Harvard Square / Cambridge
I can’t stand the upper part of Cape Cod personally. It has the the odd distinction of being a tourist trap even though most of the people that go there are Boston locals. Boston locals often spend thousands of dollars a week to live in a shack 40 miles from home in unfavorable weather. The upper cape tends to be very tacky as well.
That isn’t completely true for the outer cape towards Provincetown but that is a long drive. Newport, RI is gorgeous and interesting and it has good beaches in Newport proper as well as up and down the RI coast. Block Island, RI is supposed to be great and not very crowded. Marthas Vineyard and Nantucket are great especially if you want to famous people but they tend to be overbooked and cost big bucks during the summer. In case you don’t know the area, RI is the size of a postage stamp and closer to Boston than much of Cape Cod.
I was about to start this thread…hope you don’t mind if I hijack a little bit.
I’m visiting New England for a wedding, and flying out of Logan the evening of Aug. 11th. Basically, I’ve got most of Sunday and Monday to spend in the area. Where should I stay? What should I do? Spending Sunday night well out of the city is not out of the question - just need to be at the airport on time the next day.
I knew this would happen. Yes, there is no interstate. By interstate, I meant a limited access high speed road which features nothing but scrub pine, weeds and other native fauna to look at as you drive. Route 6 is a secondary US highway that traverses other states, but is not called an interstate highway. You are precisely correct. It’s still a boring drive, but a (slightly) more efficient way of getting up to the mid and lower cape. I see from Wikipedia that Rt 6 is the second longest highway in USA. Interesting.
For the OP: lower cape is actually the furthest away from the mainland–Ptown etc. Mid cape is easy, as it’s in the middle, and upper cape is right off the Bourne bridge. I’m not about to say where upper turns into mid and mid into lower–I’m not a native.
Here is website with some info on travel there. capecodtowns
Biking is huge on the cape and lots of fun. There are miles of bike trails, many of them old railroad tracks converted.
Sorry, I wasn’t posting strictly for the sake of pedantry. Since the OP doesn’t seem to be familiar with the area I didn’t want them (for example) driving down 495 and wondering why they couldn’t get to Provincetown without taking what seemed to be local roads.
Thanks for all the info - I am sure it will come in handy.
A little more detail: we are arriving Sunday night in Boston and staying in the South End (at least, that’s what the hotel info says.) I’ve read enough to know that driving in the city is not recommended, so we are planning to see the city on foot and with public transportation. We pick up the rental car on Thursday morning and plan to take the day to wander from Boston to the Cape. We’re staying in Eastham, near where my brother has in-laws who are throwing a party. We leave on Monday late, allowing most of that day to get back to Boston and drop off the car.
We do plan to see the beaches - have to check out the ocean on the wrong side I am sure we will see Provincetown, since it’s not far from Eastham - I will keep in mind the tourist traffic. I expect there’s more than we can actually see in Boston in a couple of days, but we’ll make the best of the time we have. Again, thanks for the help.
(it was a good point. I just hope the OP can actually navigate out of Boston. I’m sure the cow trails were charming at some point, but damn, that city is hard to get around!).
OP: use the T (the Trolley)–it’s good, fairly cheap and gets you where you want to go.
Doesn’t matter, really–you can see one bridge from the other, practically. (IOW, you’re ending up at the same place*). I’d take the Bourne Bridge, myself.
Well, the same place being the Cape–the bridges are not that far apart.
