October 3, 2017. Portsmouth to Rockport, MA. Yankee Clipper Inn. We left Portsmouth this morning driving north back into Maine. Kittery, Maine, is just a few miles from Portsmouth. It is the oldest community in Maine, founded in the 1620s. Fort McClary is just outside Kittery and is located on Kittery Point. The fort was in service during five wars beginning with the American Revolution.
If you like lighthouses and church steeples, New England is the place for you. There were two lighthouses across the water from Fort McClary. There were steepled white Congregationalist churches in Kittery, Hampton and Newburyport, all towns on the Atlantic seaboard in southern Maine and northern Massachusetts.
We stayed on Highway 1 again. The two-lane roads are the best way to see America. The Interstates are nice if you are trying to get from one place to another as fast as possible. However, the backroads are far more instructive on history and the institutions which make America the country it is.
And, so, we follow the blue highways when we have time to do so. Today, blue highway number 1 brought us to the Yankee Clipper Inn in Rockport, MA. The inn was built in 1929 after an earlier version of the inn was destroyed by fire. There is another house across the street called the Bullfinch House which was designed and constructed in 1840. Together the two dwellings have 15 guest rooms.
The Clipper has been a temporary home to celebrities like John Kennedy, John Lennon, Paul Newman and Bette Davis. It is now a temporary home to Malachi and Annie Farkley. I expect the Inn will want to revise its brochure after our stay to include the Farkleys among the other celebrities.
Rockport has a quaint and bustling commercial district. We made a quick drive through this afternoon. The small, colorful shops border a one-lane street with no sidewalks. The picture of the Village Silversmith shop, above, is typical. Customers walk in the street where the speed limit for vehicles is 10 MPH. Tomorrow, after breakfast provided by the Inn, Annie and I will go back into town and visit some of the shops there. I'll try to get some more pictures for you. Don't expect any gifts. Annie Farkley is too cheap for that.
Until my next edition, goodnight.
2 comments:
So many places I would like to be. So many people I would like to be with. So many books I would like to read. Enjoy!
In an earlier post you credited Annie for researching this trip. Is this for the historical highlights inserted in the blog or the restaurants? Both are important!
Keep posting, we're enjoying.
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