Cape Cod is larger than most people imagine. Your accommodations in Yarmouth Port for the next two nights place you right in the middle of the Cape, ready for action. The Upper Cape closest to the Massachusetts mainland is home to Sandwich and Falmouth, location of the famous Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.

Hyannis, of Kennedy fame, is located Mid-Cape.  The narrow portion of land where it bends sharply north is considered the Lower Cape.  The Outer Cape includes the Cape Cod National Seashore, forty miles of pristine sandy beach, marshes, ponds and uplands. Lighthouses, cultural landscapes and wild cranberry bogs offer a glimpse of Cape Cod's past.

Stephen Leatherman, aka Dr. Beach, recently named Coast Guard Beach the 5th best beach in the US. Provincetown, at the very end of the Cape and long known as an art town, berths several whale watching fleets that patrol Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary. Several guarantee a whale sighting at the right time of year.

Accommodation: Inn at Cape Cod or similiar

The region around Essex Connecticut is one of the oldest in America. Old Saybrook, Connecticut, where the Connecticut River meet the Long Island Sound, is one of the oldest towns in the state dating back to 1635.

Begun as an independent colony known as the Saybrook Plantation, the colony was started when a company of English Puritans headed by led by John Wintrhop, Jr. erected
a fort to guard the river entrance. The Pequot War engulfed the area in 1636. Yale University was founded in Old Saybrook as the Collegiate School for the education of ministers in 1700.

Just two miles away, settlers from Saybrook founded Lyme on the banks of the Connecticut River in the 1640s. By the 1650s the town was exporting barrel staves to the West Indies. Lyme prospered in the 1700s and 1800s, during which many of its fine old churches, houses and public buildings were constructed. During the late 1800s and early 1900s it became a summer art colony favoured by painters. The less wealthy boarded in the fine old (1817) mansion of Miss Florence Griswold on Lyme Street, now Old Lyme's most noted art museum.

American Impressionists whom Miss Griswold admired, including Charles Ebert, Childe Hassam, Willard Metcalfe, Henry Ward Ranger, and Guy and Carleston Wiggins, decorated many of the mansion's walls and doors with their work— sometimes in lieu of rent!

Accommodation:Griswold Inn or similiar.

Since it is a very short distance from the Berkshires to Manchester Village, you have the option to travel on a scenic driving loop that takes you to Bennington and Brattleboro and back to Manchester again is only 113 miles long.

You’ll find Bennington County, Vermont as quintessential New England as there is. There are two historic walking tours in Bennington. One includes the original structures remaining from settlement and the “Old First Church” behind which poet Robert Frost is buried. Another driving tour takes you under five covered bridges and to the Vermont Covered Bridge Museum. Be sure notto miss the Apple Barn and Country Bake Shop, as well as Bennington Potters, world famous forr their stoneware pottery.

Between Bennington and Brattleboro, take the Molly Stark Trail National Scenic Byway through the southern Green Mountains. It is named after the wife of New Hampshire General John Stark who was the victor in the 1777 Battle of Bennington. The road is the route that the General and his troops marched home after their triumph over the forces of King George III.

Enjoy the three state overlook from the top of Hog Mountain. Brattleboro is a college town and completely different than Bennington. The downtown is filled with art galleries, craftspeople, artists, boutiques, shops and restaurants. From there it’s a short drive back to your accommodations in Manchester.

Accommodation:Inn at Manchester or similiar.

Once you get to Jackson, it’s everything you’d expect in quintessential New England. Cold, clear rushing streams reflect the deep lush greens of summer and the blazing colors that set the hillsides on fire in fall. Towering granite cliffs and soaring mountains hug both sides of the road as you make your way along age old winding, scenic routes, the woods that poet Robert Frost called, “lovely, dark and deep.” You can come here to escape all of mankind, which most of the residents do.

Locals will assure you that you can have a vacation away from the “citied” world in a place that has not changed much in centuries. Many of the charming villages still look as they did when writer Nathaniel Hawthorne and painter Thomas Cole lived here in the 18th century. And that’s the way they like it, slow, easy and simple, leaving time to appreciate the astounding scenic beauty all around.

There’s a great scenic loop to be explored today that includes the beautiful Kancamagus Highway, Mt. Washington, the highest peak in the Northeast and scenic Route 16, which gets progressively more scenic as it heads north. Jackson is one of the most attractive towns in all of New Hampshire.

Accommodation:The Wentworth or similiar.

The Kennebunks are very old coastal towns, settled in 1620. Maine remained a part of the Colony of Massachusetts and Kennebunk did not become a city until 1820.

If you’re up for a short walk at this point, the Kennebunk National Register Historic District Village walk begins at the Brick Store Museum and continues on Main Street.  If there’s time, the Kennebunkport History Center is located at 125 North Street.  Five buildings, including a shipwright’s office, comprise the history center campus and present a good perspective of seafaring life in the Massachusetts colony.

Some folks call the Kennebunk Beach the "Kennebunk Workout." You'll call it spectacular. The string of beaches, some sandy, some rocky, that stretch along Beach Avenue from Gooch's Beach past Lord’s Point are all connected by sidewalks — a feature that makes this great stretch of seaside a favorite with walkers, joggers and roller-bladers anytime of day or evening. Take an early morning stroll past long stretches of beach, shorefront homes and inns before the sun worshippers spread their towels on the sand.

Enjoy the warmth of midday or the romance of an orange and purple sky reflecting off the water at sunset. Kennebunk Beach is readily accessible. You can drive to the beach and park, or you can take the trolley and leave your car behind.

Accommodation:Kennebunkport Inn or similiar.

Spend one more day exploring this wonderful historic city. Perhaps you'd like to take advantage of the tax-free shopping on clothes and shoes in Boston's wide variety of stores and malls?