Tuesday 4 October 2016
We are on our third Great Rail Journeys holiday (India [Palace on Wheels] and Canada [Rocky Mountaineer] were the previous trips); this time we are going to visit New England in the Fall. We are on what I think is an “extra” trip as it is not a normal departure day for GRJ and unusually is a BA flight, so adding air miles for our future holidays!
Our flight destination from Heathrow is Boston but we return to visit the City at the end of our holiday and we are soon on a coach down to the coast staying at ShoreWay Acres Inn, Falmouth. The coach journey along the US highways is smooth but most of the foliage we can see remains green and although there is some evidence of colour changing it is not significant. Are we going to be denied the autumn colours which are the entire point of the trip?
Falmouth is south south east from Boston and being an early settler location we pass signs for Braintree, Weymouth, Plymouth and Barnstaple (among others) as we head to our destination which is still on the mainland. We are however not far from the island of Martha’s Vineyard which we shall visit in a couple of days and we are right on the coast.
The hotel is perhaps a little old fashioned but reminds me very much of the TVs view of the world in the nature of ‘Murder She Wrote’. We wander out to the small Main Street which has an interesting variety of shops, including a bookshop. We had previously identified a restaurant (the Quarterdeck) which is packed with customers. We order a starter and main course each, forgetting we are in America. The starter is large and the main course larger still; not surprisingly many customers seem to order only a main course. Jackie hears another customer order a martini and regrets not being able to follow her example! Jackie then orders a white Zinfandel. This of course turns out to be slightly pink and we all know how much Jackie enjoys a rosé! We stagger back to the hotel feeling somewhat bloated to say the least.