A reader question:
Hey SWNE friends -
The girls and I are thinking about an off season (November) jaunt to Nantucket in search of quiet relaxation and seafood. Any thoughts - pros or cons - about visiting at that time of year?
Thanks!
Wednesday, October 9, 2024
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Pros: few tourists, so restaurants, lodging are much more reasonably priced and accessible; great weather for wearing heavy sweaters and other warm clothes; most businesses should be open through the winter holidays.
ReplyDeleteCons: all maybes, and all weather-related. It can get cold, down to the 30s Fahrenheit; rough seas if you ferry; though November would be late for a big storm, the "perfect storm" nor'easter was end of October and caused major flooding, power outages, and made a big mess.
I don't know, never been there, but I have been to Cape Cod in winter, early spring and for Thanksgiving and love the Cape off season. Always lots to do and many wonderful places to eat delicious food. For instance, in front of the fire at the beloved Old Yarmouth Inn. Also spent a February weekend at the Chatham Bars Inn in a blizzard, had a cottage by the sea to myself. The staff kept me supplied with piles of firewood. A great place for a peaceful time of reading and reflecting and imagining what it was like for Henry Beston in his book The Outermost House many decades before.
ReplyDeleteWe treasure the Old Yarmouth Inn. Arpad and Sheila are amazing!
DeleteMy family has a house in Chatham, but I've always fantasized about heading out there in the winter. My parents go year-round, but I rarely feel like taking a trip there during the winter. I've been a few times during the winter, but even if there's snow on the ground, I've yet to experience anything but a dusting while on the Cape.
DeleteI believe the snow storm I remember was around February 8-9, 1994.
DeleteAny time is a good time to be there! Thank you!
ReplyDeleteMany restaurants will be closed, but the bay scallops will be in season. The weather can be gorgeous, enabling nice bike rides and beach walks. And no crowds!
ReplyDeleteRead Moby Dick, absorb the Whaling Museum, walk the cobbled streets enjoy the archtecture, take a quick spin around the island to see it's many faces, stroll the beaches in between trying delish food offerings everywhere. Take a sunset sail and watch the great ball of fire sink into the ocean. Enjoy your visit. PBH
ReplyDeleteWe were there last November and had a great visit. Plenty of places were open to get food and drink and the weather was typical of NE in November. We were able to enjoy the firepits at our hotel and have great hikes and strolls. Be forewarned to be flexible about travel plans, if the weather gets nasty, the ferries will not run.
ReplyDeleteIMHO, November is great month to visit Nantucket. Some of my best Thanksgivings have been there. Slower island pace… one can even find parking on Main Street…
ReplyDeleteYes, weather can be nasty.
Personally, I think the off season is the only time to visit those places. Fewer people, better service, short waits, unobstructed views, sweater weather, and what could be better than a stormy day, spent reading inside by the fire, overlooking the ocean? Tourist meccas in the busy season don't feel relaxing to me - they just feel congested and hurried.
ReplyDeleteIt's fun to visit when summer is in full swing and there are a ton of people and lots of action. But I've visited MV and Nantucket a few times in the fall, once during a huge storm. I had a great time. I've always enjoyed the different pace during the off-season. I'm sure it will be a lot of fun and well worth a trip.
ReplyDeleteHappy news -- you can take the ferry from the tri-state area to Nantucket if you'd like -- https://seastreak.com
ReplyDeleteI live in Nantucket and don’t believe the SeaStreak runs in the winter.
DeleteSeaStreak is a bargain- but yes nothing after Mid October I believe. Leave NJ early Friday afternoon- leave ACK 230 Sunday. Stops at MV and the city both ways.
DeleteIf you like peace/solitude, the Cape, the Vineyard, and Nantucket are fabulous in the off-season. Just mind the weather and change your plans if a big coastal storm is in range.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, Mummy would always insist that Thanksgiving would be held at the house in Sconset each year. She was a bit unrealistic about the ability of certain family members to get onto the Island, especially my older siblings then enrolled at Château Mont-Choisi and my younger brother in his first form year at Woodberry Forest School. She simply expected us all to arrive sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday as if magically dropped by an arial Rover somewhere on Main Street a few steps from Green Chimneys. In the event, we all somehow made it, along with assorted boyfriends and girlfriends, uncles and aunts and a stray cousin or two. Daddy never really participated in any of the festivities. He arrived late and left early out of ACK. He also shot skeet over Thanksgiving and the shooting camp was at Lead Mine Lake, in Sturbridge, MA. All of us fled the house in Sconset any chance we could over those long weekends and went into Town to visit friends from home or school as well as to visit the Chicken Box and drink watered beer with Willie. I also recall eating appalling bad Turkey cooked by Mummy's maid and other horrors mostly made with aspic (which I now understand has been banned in several states). My best friend came four years in a row. Ferd was my roomate at Lawrenceville and very keen on Nantucket as I remember.
ReplyDelete^^ This little anecdote by Anon @ 4:13 pm sounds like it's straight out of The Preppy Handbook!
DeleteThanks. I had just graduated from Yale when Lisa wrote the Handbook. Several friends are pictured in the first edition. It is still my favorite book, after the Bible, of course.
DeleteThe Chicken Box is not Old And In The Way it’s been rocking since the 60’s!
ReplyDeleteYES!
ReplyDeleteNantucket is never worth visiting unless you are a wannabe with too much money burning a hole in your pocket.There was a time to visit Nantucket, but it is long gone unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteSurely that is a touch overwrought. That said, and sadly said, there is truth in what you write. I recall that Daddy never let on at the Firm that his grandparents purchased a cottage in Sconset after the War and that his parents were frolicking on Fat Lady's during the thirties with their boarding school chums. He never wished to be obliged to invite anyone who was not one of our kind to the Island. Slowly but surely, word got out and by the mid-60's poor Mummy was serving horrid cocktails with little paper tents and pieces of fruit to guests who had more vowels in their last names than consonents, if you get my drift. I remember one couple, Joe and Maria. Joe wore a white leather belt an entire weekend. I swear Mrs. Peale across the street stroked out when she saw him. Maria had hair so fixed in place with some kind of mist out of a can she carried around that no winds on the Island could move it one inch. Soon, Joe and Maria began the rent from scoundrels in Town for the week along with others who discovered that the Ferry almost never sank between Hynannis and Town during the Summer. And then jets started landing at ACK and people in show business came and went. Many think that the Island's demise started with Barry Sternlicht's purchase of property. I don't know. His home was later destroyed by erosion and several of our older friends on the Island actually held a celebration party. Nowadays, the Island is awash in poseurs, charlatans, pretenders and assorted undesireables in the Summer. In the event, it can still be pretty nice in October and April when we are in the majority.
DeleteAccording to UNEsCO as much as 60% of the fine art in the world is in Italy. The vast majority of it created by people with more vowels in their last names than consonants.
DeleteThis another offended Italian ? But who among us, to say nothing of the general American public, knows how big was the Roman road system ? Only 10,000 miles longer than the US Interstate Highway System. Paesans do have a point.
DeleteNobody - nobody - had or has had the infrastructural vision the Romans had. Any public works director, any civil engineering professional, worth their salt, would agree with this. In that department, since the Forum was routed it has been all downhill.
DeleteWhilst at Yale, I recall hearing stories about the construction of the Colleges in the 1930's by Italian stone masons who immigrated to Connecticut solely for the purpose of building up Yale. They also started a famous pizza restaurant. I say to all of these fine men, well done!
DeleteAfter World War Two they wouldn’t even let an Italian-American into Yale. By 1978 an Italian American was president of Yale.
DeleteThe end arrived when more houses were built in Miacomet.
ReplyDeleteSo true. Miacomet was so close to town, yet so far away. As noted recently on SWNE, “everyone comes from somewhere that’s not like it used to be.” Alas.
DeleteIf you're lucky to be on Nantucket - you're lucky enough! I think the off-season is the best time to visit!
ReplyDelete