Fall Foliage Tour VI

Marblehead Massachusetts... What an interesting place. To have an idea of what this town is like, you need to imagine the wooden sailing ships of the 1700's coming into harbor. The sailors get off the ship entering a jumble of wooden houses on streets which are disorganized and narrow. Most of the houses we saw were built at that time. We enjoyed walking along Front Street. Getting up early we stopped by the Driftwood coffee shop, hoping to get something for breakfast. It was very small and packed. The patrons looked set to stay there for a while. In reality the food looked very average, but the atmosphere was the attraction. We decided to walk up State Street to the small downtown on Washington Street. We came across Halleys. We entered and found ourselves a lovely table by the window. What luck! The coffee and food were excellent. I ordered a fruit and Greek yoghurt plate. It was large varied and delicious. My French road coffee was perfect. Great lucky choice! After breakfast we wandered around the town. First stop was the Abbot Hall, which is the seat of the town government. We spent a lot of time with the painting "Spirit of '76". One of the town councilors explained the painting to us with its long history, including that of the painter. She also told us all about the town of Marblehead and what its like to live in a historic home. The town was having its sidewalk sale, so it was fun walking along all the stores, seeing the various goods they had placed along the sidewalk on sale. This is a town of "Mom & Pop" stores. wer managed to visit the town's historical society, where we saw their exhibition of shoemaking and the J O J Frost paintings from the same time. We did not realize that shoe making was the town's main trade before 1800. This was also the place where the US Navy began. We returned to our rooming house, (can't really call it a bed and breakfast!), gathered our washing and returned to the town to find a laundromat. We did our washing and then raced to Logan airport to pick up Ingrid sister and brother-in-law. It took us 45 minutes to drive the 13 miles to the airport. The weather was glorious along the seaside, so we did not rush on the way back. After returning to the Marblehead Summer House, our rooming house, we took a leisurely stroll along front street to find somewhere for an early dinner. Thanks to Yelp, we picked one of two well rated restaurants. Both the Landings and Barnacles had good ratings, but we chose Barnacles. Because we were early, we managed to get a table right away. We asked for an outdoor table, but were advised against it because it was a bit chilly. We did go outside to try, but they were correct. Our indoor table worked out just fine. The fish we ordered was tasty, firm and cooked to perfection. The prices were very reasonable for the area. Good job.

After our early dinner, we continued our walk along Front Street all the way to Fort Sewell, just in time to catch the sunset. Beautiful!! We found a park bench we we sat and enjoyed the scenery of the sun setting over Marblehead harbor. We walked up the hill into the town for some after dinner exercise. Returned to the rooms for an early night. Looking forward to another fun day tomorrow.