by Rituparna
(Naugatuck, CT, USA)
Cape Cod, home to some of the most beautiful beaches of New England was our spring holiday destination for this year!!
Spring in Cape Cod is the right time to visit if you want to avoid the mad summer rush and also prevent making a hole in your pocket. Most of the hotels offer great deals and the parks do not charge any admission fees. But above everything, the sunny beach is a welcome break after the long harsh winters. After considering all the pros we were on our way to West Yarmouth to spend the weekend. Just four hours away …. we could not have chosen a better place for the perfect weekend!
Saturday was hot and sunny …. perfect for us to hit the beach. We drove to the Cape Cod National Seashore, having the best beaches in the cape area. Drive down Route 6 and hundreds of beaches dots the area. Since we had our 11 months old baby with us we were not keen to hop from beach to beach. We chose the Coast Guard Beach and spend the entire afternoon there. We had a nice lunch picnic on the back drop of the Atlantic Ocean. The icy cool water and the the warm sandy beaches provided a contrast of sorts. This was Ritisha’s first trip to the beach so she was awestruck though a bit afraid of the water in the beginning. She enjoyed playing in the sand with her yellow baseball and I loved the tan that I got while napping on the beach.
Cape Cod is well known for its lighthouses. The Nauset Light Beach is a beautiful beach with a lighthouse and just next to the Coastguard Beach. There are quite a few other lighthouse beaches which you can explore in the Cape area. Since we wanted to spend a lazy time by the sea and not make it hectic for our baby we stuck with one beach. There are enormous biking and hiking trail which are scenic and you can spend days exploring them.
We headed to our hotel in the late afternoon after the long day at the beach. The other things you should not miss during your stay in the Cape is the marshes and the lovely sunset over them. We enjoyed watching the Sun set over the marshes from the Grey’s Beach boardwalk. The walk on the boardwalk is delightful with the marshes all around you and the white sand dunes far off. We even came across a heart shaped marsh land!It gets cold as the Sun sets so it was time to search for a nice place to have dinner. If you are looking for seafood there is no dearth of places. Since I am not a huge seafood fan I decided to check out a Mexican restaurant Acapulco’s. Simply awesome food, their Nachos Idaho was so delicious that I cannot keep raving enough about it. After the delightful heavy dinner we slept in peace so did Ritisha after her first exhausting trip to the beach.
The next day we set sail to Martha’s Vineyard ~ the place which became famous after it became the summer holiday destination for Bill Clinton and now President Obama. We took the Steamship Authority ferry to the island. The ferry departs from Woods Hole but you have to park your car in Palmer Avenue, from there free shuttle buses drops you at Woods Hole. The high speed ferry just takes 45 minutes to take you to the island. The ferry ride across the Atlantic is beautiful, really sit back and enjoy the sights around you.
On reaching Martha’s Vineyards the first thing that we did is buying the whole day unlimited bus ride pass. We figured thats the best way to see the island in the few hours that we had. It was a cold and cloudy Sunday, not a great day to explore the island but we were determined not to leave the place without taking a visit to the famed Gay Head Cliffs. I guess if you are planning to visit one place in the island it should be the Cliffs and the Lighthouse. After changing a couple of buses we reached the Cliffs. Once we reached there it was cold and very windy…. the wind almost threw us off the cliffs. It was so cloudy that from the overlook we could hardly see the Lighthouse, could just see the beach below us and the cliffs were vaguely visible ….. all lost in the mist! Our luck!! We were stuck on the cold windy cliffs for an hour as the next bus would arrive after an hour. We visited a couple of gift shops there …. Cape Cod souvenirs ….. but they were over priced. We had to while away our time so we started walking on the trail that led to the beach below the cliff. We made it half way through the trail and got back as it was getting more foggy and we did not want to miss the next bus which would take us back to the ferry. We saw a couple of Gingerbread houses in Oak Bluffs,the home of the rich and famous,they are cute but over rated I guess. The old world charm about the island is what mesmerizes you. Ritisha thoroughly enjoyed her bus trip on the island, she kept looking out of those big windows and took in the scenic view of the island.
Well as the evening set in it was time for us to drive back home. Spending a week in the island would have been lovely…. but yes thats something our pockets won’t permit. For one weekend we made the most of our stay at the Cape with our 11 months old daughter. Don’t miss out the sun n’ the sand of Cape if you are in New England!
