IF there was a beauty contest for houses, the colonial homes of New England, USA, would win hands-down.
Whether small or stately, the manicured homes and gardens look as though they have stepped straight from the beauty parlour with their swing porch seats, American flags and bunting, and immaculate garden beds without a blade of grass out of place.
This obsession with perfection is mimicked in public places.
When I spotted, for the first time, an unkempt area of roadside verge in Newport, Rhode Island, there was no time for a “gotcha” moment. For there it was, a big apologetic sign “Too soon to mow yet. Next year’s (daffodil) flowers in progress.”
A tour of the the idyllic islands of New England such as Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket is a perfect choice for those looking for a gentler way to experience time in the United States.
It’s full of lovely villages with white clapboard houses, rose-covered picket fences, small but delightful art galleries and museums and one-of-a-kind shops, and populated by an eclectic mix of artists, professionals, retirees, fishermen, farmers and seafood lovers.
It’s a happy place for everything except lobsters, which are plucked from the waters in their tens of thousands only to reappear on waterfront restaurant and cafe menus in the form of lobster bakes and rolls.
Lobster wasn’t always such a sought-after dish by tourists and locals. The early pilgrims referred to them as mud-roaches, classifying them as insects and crushing them for garden fertiliser. They were even considered such an unpalatable product they were fed to prisoners.
Your introduction to the ways of New England on Collette’s eight-day Islands of New England tour begins in Providence, Rhode Island, the first state in America to declare independence from the king of England.
Providence’s population is small but is boosted by college students attending prestigious institutions such as Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Key attractions are its magnificent State Hall with its Independent Man statue (he was struck by lightning 27 times before anyone thought to give him a lightning rod), the School of Design Museum and the beautiful houses on tree-lined streets such as Prospect and Benefit.
Take time to visit the historic Providence Art Club in Thomas Street, for artists and collectors. The members-only club is happy for visitors to take a peek inside its glorious rooms.
Nearby is Newport, population 25,000, where JFK (the most famous initials in America and possibly the world) married Jackie Bouvier.
It is a city of firsts including a first they’d rather forget – the day they lost the America’s Cup to Australia. Even today you’ll find they refer to it as “the cup that was stolen from us”.
Newport had the first free public school in the US and boasts the oldest synagogue, first ferry service, oldest tavern, oldest bank building and the country’s largest collection of colonial houses.
It also has the International Tennis Hall of Fame documenting the history of tennis. It is located in Newport, Casino which began as a social club for the elite who summered there by the sea in the 1880s. In 1881 it was home to the first US national championships, now the US Open. People still come to play on its beautifully manicured historic grass tennis courts.
However, the biggest attraction are the grand mansions, which were a symbol of a family’s social and financial pre-eminence in turn-of-the-century America.
You could hear everything in the adjoining cottages
- Ellen Hansen
Our group toured Marble House, which, in 1892, was the most opulent house in the US, built of 500,000 cubic feet of marble for Alva Vanderbilt by architect Richard Morris Hunt. Neighbouring Rosecliff, built in 1902 for a silver heiress, has been used for films such as The Great Gatsby.
It’s hard to believe but these opulent mansions were once only party houses or “summer cottages”.
It was a different sort of life for the pilgrims who arrived in Plymouth aboard the Mayflower in 1620, as we discovered when we toured the Plimoth Plantation (400 years ago there were no set rules for spelling, so words were generally spelt phonetically), a living museum of 17th-century ways.
Here houses and artefacts of the era have been skilfully recreated by artisans while staff dress in the attire of the day, portraying actual residents of the 1627 colony.
Later that day we sat down to a meal of food prepared the way it would have been done in an early Plymouth colony.
The first thing we noticed was that there were no forks – just spoons and knives. Fingers served as cutlery back then and the table always had a tablecloth because people believed eating off bare wood was for hogs at a trough. The meal was surprisingly good – turkey with an onion sauce thickened with grated bread with pumpkin and a pudding made of milk, molasses and cornmeal.
A highlight of the Collette tour is a visit to an island much loved by celebrities – Martha’s Vineyard (where oddly there are no vineyards).
The normal population of 20,000 swells to more than 100,000 in summer as people, including film stars and politicians, occupy the island of just 100 square miles with no traffic lights.
The movie Jaws was filmed here and we pass over the bridge where some of the gruesome scenes were shot with a mechanical shark the locals dubbed Bruce.
Our guide Ellen Hansen took us to see the Martha’s Vineyard Camp Meeting Association’s delightful whimsical Victorian gingerbread cottages in Oak Bluffs. The property was developed by Methodists in 1835 as a summer retreat. In those days tents were assembled around the wrought iron tabernacle, which still stands today.
In 1859 cottages began to replace the tents, keeping to much the same space. The result is candy-coloured cottages barely an arm’s length apart.
Ellen, who holidayed here with her family over four decades, remembers the early days of no running water or the luxury of a bathtub, but also the joy of people coming together and singing from a songbook.
Every evening a “shusher” would come around to the cottages, telling people they had to be quiet. “You could hear everything in the adjoining cottages,” Ellen said.
In a tradition that continues today, lanterns are lit on a night in August every year, transforming the rows of houses into a fairyland.
One cottage that has been transformed into a museum displays a copy of the original Camp Meeting Rules. The bell would ring each morning at five for rising and at 10 in the evening “at which time all vocal exercises must cease”.
However, there could be walks before retiring for the evening. For the ladies it would be in the direction of the front of the stand and for the gentleman in the direction of the rear of the stand.
Our last day was spent exploring Hyannis, home to the Kennedy compound on Hyannis Sound bought by Joseph Snr and Rose Kennedy. The whole family would congregate here over summer and it was regarded as the summer White House when JFK was in office. (It was his presidential retreat until he was assassinated in 1963.)
The JFK Memorial here draws large numbers of visitors including, interestingly while we were there, a bride and groom having their wedding pictures taken.
From here it is a short hop over to the lovely island of Nantucket with its historic sea captains’ homes on the waterfront.
The people of Nantucket boast they produced the equivalent of the first Do Not Disturb sign in the world. Boats went out for two or three years at a time so when the men returned they wanted some privacy. A pineapple was placed on the porch when the couple were ready to receive visitors again.
IF YOU GO….
COLLETTE’S eight-day Islands of New England tour has frequent departures, with prices starting at $2715 (low season) land only.
With small distances to cover each day, the tour spends three nights at the Hilton Hotel Providence and four nights at the beachside Sea Crest hotel at Falmouth, so there’s no packing and unpacking every day.
Details – phone 1300-792-196, www.gocollette.com.au
Sue Preston was a guest of Collette Tours.
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