While I was trevelling around New England in May I decided to stop for a few nights in Martha's Vineyard, which I had heard so much also sadly for the tragic death of John John Kennedy and his wife. So I booked a room in a lovely guesthouse
Narrangansett House situated in Oak Bluffs one of the most pictoresque sites on the island. The houses are all coloured and look like fairy tales mansions, the town is on the sea and you can take a long walk to get to the beach and then throught the internal part of fields and lakes. I spent a very nice vacation there: resting, being in the nature and exploring one of the nicest places I have ever seen. In the morning I would take my breakfast from the kitchen and bring it on my little porch, have a chat with the very nice lady owner and then walk or drive to the beach and lay down in the sun.
To get to Martha's Vineyard one has to take a ferry from Cape Cod which takes one hour or so and the funny thing is that once you get to the island the locals will ask you if you have just come from America since they live in the Vineyard and in their conception it's not even part of the States. What is it then ? Well It's just the Vineyard. In Oak Bluffs a very nice walk to take is in the heart of the little town where the so called " gingerbread houses" are. Thi s is their history"
Some of the earliest visitors to the area that became Cottage City and later Oak Bluffs were Methodists, who gathered in the oak grove each summer for multi-day religious "camp meetings" held under large tents and in the open air. As families returned to the grove year after year, tents pitched on the ground gave way to tents pitched on wooden platforms and eventually to small wooden cottages. Small in scale and closely packed, the cottages grew more elaborate over time. Porches, balconies, elaborate door and window frames became common, as did complex wooden scrollwork affixed to the roof edges as decorative trim. The unique "Carpenter's Gothic" architectural style of the cottages was often accented by the owner's use of bright, multi-hue paint schemes, and gave the summer cottages a quaint, almost storybook look. Dubbed "gingerbread cottages," they became a tourist attraction in their own right in the late nineteenth century. So, too, did the Tabernacle: a circular, open-sided pavilion covered by a metal roof supported by tall wrought iron columns, erected in the late 1880s, which became a venue for services and community events. The campground's gingerbread cottages are cherished historic landmarks as well as very expensive real estate. Many are still family owned and passed on generation to generation. On April 5, 2005, the grounds and buildings in the Campground were designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior." ( from Wikipedia.
They look indeed like the house of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. See for yourselves.
Nice huh? The other town on the island which is worth visiting is Edgardtown which instead is more posh and full of white houses and trendy shops. Mind you :it is a very small place but it's very nice and refined although I surely preferred Oak Bluffs. The nice thing about the island is that it is nice to drive around and stop wherever you like and the landscape changes quite ofetn to allow you to enjoy different aspects of nature: sea, lakes, woods, wildlife and gorgeous views. I'll never forget my staying, for many reasons and the colours and landscapes of this wonderful island will always stay in my eyes as I'm sure they would stay in yours.
While I was trevelling around New England in May I decided to stop for a few nights in Martha's Vineyard, which I had heard so much also sadly for the tragic death of John John Kennedy and his wife. So I booked a room in a lovely guesthouse Narrangansett House situated in Oak Bluffs one of the most pictoresque sites on the island. The houses are all coloured and look like fairy tales mansions, the town is on the sea and you can take a long walk to get to the beach and then throught the internal part of fields and lakes. I spent a very nice vacation there: resting, being in the nature and exploring one of the nicest places I have ever seen. In the morning I would take my breakfast from the kitchen and bring it on my little porch, have a chat with the very nice lady owner and then walk or drive to the beach and lay down in the sun.
To get to Martha's Vineyard one has to take a ferry from Cape Cod which takes one hour or so and the funny thing is that once you get to the island the locals will ask you if you have just come from America since they live in the Vineyard and in their conception it's not even part of the States. What is it then ? Well It's just the Vineyard. In Oak Bluffs a very nice walk to take is in the heart of the little town where the so called " gingerbread houses" are. Thi s is their history" Some of the earliest visitors to the area that became Cottage City and later Oak Bluffs were Methodists, who gathered in the oak grove each summer for multi-day religious "camp meetings" held under large tents and in the open air. As families returned to the grove year after year, tents pitched on the ground gave way to tents pitched on wooden platforms and eventually to small wooden cottages. Small in scale and closely packed, the cottages grew more elaborate over time. Porches, balconies, elaborate door and window frames became common, as did complex wooden scrollwork affixed to the roof edges as decorative trim. The unique "Carpenter's Gothic" architectural style of the cottages was often accented by the owner's use of bright, multi-hue paint schemes, and gave the summer cottages a quaint, almost storybook look. Dubbed "gingerbread cottages," they became a tourist attraction in their own right in the late nineteenth century. So, too, did the Tabernacle: a circular, open-sided pavilion covered by a metal roof supported by tall wrought iron columns, erected in the late 1880s, which became a venue for services and community events. The campground's gingerbread cottages are cherished historic landmarks as well as very expensive real estate. Many are still family owned and passed on generation to generation. On April 5, 2005, the grounds and buildings in the Campground were designated a National Historic Landmark by the Secretary of the Interior." ( from Wikipedia.
They look indeed like the house of the Hansel and Gretel fairy tale. See for yourselves.
Nice huh? The other town on the island which is worth visiting is Edgardtown which instead is more posh and full of white houses and trendy shops. Mind you :it is a very small place but it's very nice and refined although I surely preferred Oak Bluffs. The nice thing about the island is that it is nice to drive around and stop wherever you like and the landscape changes quite ofetn to allow you to enjoy different aspects of nature: sea, lakes, woods, wildlife and gorgeous views. I'll never forget my staying, for many reasons and the colours and landscapes of this wonderful island will always stay in my eyes as I'm sure they would stay in yours.
