Marblehead, Massachusetts: America’s best preserved historic town?

by Dave Seminara on

Tourism boards across the country have long struggled to find innovative ways to market destinations large and small, inviting and mundane. We have “historic districts” that have been turned into vast parking lots; towns that play up tenuous connections to living and deceased celebrities; states that promote Amish tourism even though the Amish simply want to be left alone; hokey festivals; and any number of other contrived gimmicks to try to get you to come visit.

West Virginia is Wild and Wonderful. Pennsylvania promises that You’ve Got a Friend There. New Mexico is The Land of Enchantment. In Kansas, There’s no Place Like Home. Louisiana is a Sportsman’s Paradise. Virginia is for Lovers (and pathological drivers, in my estimation).

Massachusetts likes to call itself The Spirit of America. That might sound a bit grandiose but there is a town on Boston’s North Shore that I think is the best-preserved historic town in America. The American landscape gets more homogenous by the day, but Marblehead, perched on a dramatic finger of land on the Atlantic Ocean just thirty minutes north of Boston, was founded in 1629 and has improbably managed to retain many of its historic homes, cemeteries and churches.

Tourists descend on Colonial Williamsburg like packs of hungry hyenas on the trail of a fresh carcass, but somehow, Marblehead’s atmospheric streets remain largely tourist free. The town is the birthplace of the U.S. Navy and remains one of the east coast’s premier yachting centers, with three yacht clubs and a host of regattas. It isn’t close to a highway or train station and that’s probably why it has managed to avoid the strip mall scourge that’s plagued so many old towns around the country.

On the edge of Marblehead you’ll find a Starbucks, a CVS and some other chain stores, and there are big box retailers ten miles away, but Marblehead’s historic core is filled with independent shops and restaurants with nary a national chain in sight. Everything is pretty much Wicked Local. But the town’s biggest draws are the colorful 18th and 19th century homes, many with nameplates showing the name and occupation of their original inhabitants, and its spectacular natural setting on the Atlantic Ocean.

Marblehead is an undeniably upscale place with its fair share of millionaires but unlike other cutesy historic enclaves, it also has its share of lower income residents and budget friendly dining and drinking options. I have family members who live in Marblehead, so I’ve been visiting this town for more than twenty years and I never get tired of it. Aside from the beauty and the charm, it’s a real community where people know each other well and wouldn’t dream of living anywhere else.

Here’s what to do in Marblehead.The Muffin Shop – In a town filled with history, you might wonder why I’m sending you to a muffin shop. Well, for the muffins, obviously, but this place is more than just a damn good place to add to your waistline with homemade muffins or lobster rolls made fresh each morning. It’s the heart and soul of the town and if you want to meet locals, you’ll find them lingering here in groups over breakfast every morning. But come early because they never seem to bake enough to keep up with demand.

Old Town – Get lost on the backstreets of Marblehead’s Old Town. There is no single neighborhood in the country that gives one a better flavor of what life was like in Colonial America.

Shops along Washington Street – There are a host of interesting, if pricey, shops here including the new Atlantis & Cloudveil outdoor specialty shop.

Crocker Park – A great place to sit and watch the boats go by.

The Driftwood – One reviewer on Yelp called this hole-in-the-wall eatery “Swamp Yankee territory,” and I couldn’t agree more. Another great spot to meet locals.

Devereux Beach – This great little beach is dramatically situated at the foot of a little body of land referred to as Marblehead’s Neck.

Hit the Neck – Take a drive or bike ride out to the very end of the Neck and enjoy the unbelievable view from the benches in Chandler Hovey Park next to the Marblehead Lighthouse. On the way back to town check out the Old Corinthian Yacht Club. Just try to look like you belong and you probably won’t be asked to leave.

Old Burial Hill Cemetery – One of the most atmospheric old cemeteries in New England and it offers a spectacular view to boot.

Fort Sewall – This was an armed fort used to defend against British invaders in the War of 1812. If you have kids, they’ll enjoy sitting on top of the cannons and looking out onto the Atlantic.

Dark and Stormy on the Waterfront – Have a tall 16-ounce dark & stormy, rum and ginger beer, cocktail at Maddi’s Sail Loft and visit the Barnacle for an early, harbor-side dinner.

Getting there – You can take Express Bus 441 or 442 from Haymarket downtown right to Marblehead’s Old Town but it takes a good hour. If you drive, follow route 1A, which isn’t quite as straightforward as it sounds. Signs on this twisting road can be elusive.

Images by Dave Seminara, Rick Harris and Garden State Hiker on Flickr.

Find hotel deals with new booking site Guestmob

by Meg Nesterov on

The Internet has brought us many ways to research and book hotels at prices much lower than the hotels’ published rate. Aggregate sites like Kayak and Orbitz give you the best available rate (BAR) without pre-payment on a specific hotel, while “opaque” sites like Priceline and Hotwire allow you to bid for a room below BAR but the actual property remains hidden until after you book and the purchase is non-refundable. Now a new booking site offers you hotel deals well below BAR while ensuring consumers flexibility and a standard of quality.

Guestmob differs from other hotel booking sites by combining high-tech algorithmic pricing and expertly curated properties hand-picked for their high user ratings. The site works by grouping hotels into collections of four to eight properties in a given category and neighborhood. You enter your travel dates and can immediately see a room rate of up to 50% below BAR for each hotel collection. The Thursday before you check in, the exact hotel is revealed but you are guaranteed one of the specific hotels in the collection. Best of all, unlike other opaque booking sites, you can cancel your reservation up to three days before check-in.Previously, some savvy travelers have tried to “game the system” with sites like Bidding for Travel, a forum that tries to guess winning bids and participating hotels on opaque sites by sharing successful bookings. Guestmob removes the need for this research by specifying hotels in each collection and immediately offering a deeply discounted price. While room upgrades, frequent guest points and other requests are still at the discretion of the hotel upon check-in, it’s still a great option for travelers with flexibility.

A Guestmob search for a hotel in Chicago on a weekend in mid-May yielded a price of $164 for a 3.5 star hotel on Magnificent Mile (such as a Courtyard or Embassy Suites), or $203 to bump up to a 4 star in the same area such as a W or Westin Hotel. The same properties ranged from $221 to $279 on other sites. Most Guestmob hotels are part of well-known chains such as Marriott or Starwood, or smaller chains like Kimpton and JDV.

Guestmob soft-launched last year in San Francisco and has now expanded to include New York, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, San Diego, San Jose, Seattle, Boston, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Atlanta, Houston, Dallas, Portland and Phoenix. The site is well connected to social media so you can get help, learn news or give feedback on Facebook, Twitter and Google+. You can also chat with them right on the site if you have questions.

Give Delta’s New York LaGuardia shuttle service a try

by Jeremy Kressmann on

Those that travel frequently between New York’s LaGuardia and Chicago’s O’Hare airport know that it is among the more tedious routes to fly, particularly if you’re traveling on a legacy carrier. Older, less comfortable airplanes, tiny overhead bins packed to the gills with carry-on luggage, and heavy flight traffic are all the norm, leading to plenty of stressed-out travelers.

It’s for exactly these reasons I’ve found myself pleasantly surprised in recent months by Delta’s stellar shuttle service operating out of LaGuardia’s Marine Air Terminal. It’s a service designed to cater to frequent travelers in key markets, concentrating only on those that fly between New York to either Boston Logan, Washington Reagan or Chicago O’Hare. The smaller, out-of-the-way terminal location means much shorter security lines and less crowds, and they’ve fitted the place out with comfy leather seats, lots of power ports, and complimentary newspapers and magazines. What’s more, the carrier announced this week that Wi-Fi is now available on all shuttle flights, always a nice perk. Pair that with complimentary beer and wine in economy class and you’ll begin to feel like you’re flying up in first.

True, there are downsides to the service. Skittish fliers that don’t like small planes probably won’t like the smaller Embraer 170’s Delta uses on the route. And for anyone not traveling to Boston, Washington DC or Chicago, you’re pretty much out of luck if you wish to try this one out. Still, for travelers looking to enjoy a little extra flying comfort leaving from LaGuardia, the airport most conveniently located near Manhattan (JFK, ahem, I’m not looking at you…) give Delta Shuttle a try.

[Photo by Flickr user redlegsfan21]

Sexy goddess bares all in Boston

by Sean McLachlan on


The ancient goddess of love, sex, and beauty is making an appearance at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.

Aphrodite and the Gods of Love is a new exhibition examining one of the most popular ancient goddesses and her place in the Classical world. More than 150 ancient works of art are on display, including famous pieces such as the Knidia, a life-size sculpture of Aphrodite made by the 4th-century BC Greek artist, Praxiteles. Another interesting piece is the Sleeping Hermaphrodite, a reclining figure who from one side looks like a voluptuous woman, and from the other like a man.

The exhibition traces Aphrodite’s sexy origins in the Near East and the place of her cult in Greek and Roman society. Aphrodite was a Greek goddess who was adopted into the Roman pantheon as Venus. She was the symbol of romantic love and ideal beauty. She also oversaw marriage, an odd choice since many of the myths surrounding her involve her cheating on her husband, the blacksmith god Hephaistos (Vulcan). Men worshiped her because she aroused male virility.

Being in charge of such important aspects of life made Aphrodite extremely popular. She was the patron goddess of Pompeii. Interestingly, Ramsay MacMullen in his Paganism in the Roman Empire points out that altars in private homes in Pompeii were more often dedicated to Foruna, Vesta, and Bacchus than Aphrodite. Perhaps because love received so much public worship, people felt they needed to give good luck, the home, and drinking some attention. They can be related, after all!

McMullen’s book (which I highly recommend) also touches on various ways the Romans worshipped Venus, including picnicking in the orchards around her sanctuary in Cnidus, and wild processions where a woman playing Venus led a string of dancing children playing Cupid. She and the other deities were very much part of daily life.

The exhibition also looks at related figures of Classical mythology, such as Aphrodite’s sons Eros (Cupid), the well-endowed Priapus, and Hermaphrodite.

If you want to meet this lovely lady and her interesting offspring, you better hurry. Aphrodite and the Gods of Love is only on until February 20, 2012.

Top photo: Fresco of The Judgment of Paris, Roman, Imperial Period, 45–79 A.D. Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Napoli e Pompei. Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli. © www.pedicinimages.com. Courtesy, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

%Gallery-142502%

Cockpit Chronicles: Fly Rio!

by Kent Wien on

Occasionally the airline will offer pilots the chance to fly for a month out of another base when they’re short a few pilots at that city. I remember flying with one of these temporary duty (TDY) pilots who came up to Boston from Miami. I asked him what trips he usually flew out of Miami and he began to tell me all about Rio de Janeiro.

The conversation included some good pointers about the hazards of flying in Brazil.

He pointed out that there’s a note in our manuals that talks about celebratory balloons near the city. Apparently, it’s not uncommon for Brazilians to put together huge balloons especially at night, attach them to a pallet or some other structure and light a fire under the canopy. The Miami pilot even claimed that a propane tank has been known to be the fuel source.

After nearly hitting them on two different occasions, he sought out to warn other pilots of these inflight obstacles.

He said he had even seen one while climbing through the clouds.

A quick look at YouTube shows the launching of a few of these balloons such as this one:

The Miami co-pilot went on to describe the difficult radio reception over the country as well and we talked about the midair collision between a 737 and a corporate jet down there.

After struggling to close my jaw from shock, I had to ask him, “Why do you bid those trips?”

He claimed it was for the inexpensive (at the time) and abundant beef dinners, although since he was single and rather shiny, I suspected the women in Rio were a big part of the attraction.

Now that I’m flying out of New York, I’ve had the opportunity to fly a handful of Rio de Janeiro trips-enough to at least describe some of the challenges and benefits of this long-haul flying.

My first trip to Brazil almost didn’t happen. The inbound airplane had been struck by lightning and we were initially told to wait until the early hours of the morning for a replacement. Fortunately it was decided that we should go back home and sleep overnight before continuing the next morning at 9 a.m., twelve hours after the original departure time. While the passengers were accommodated in hotels, there was no provision in our contract to put up the pilots and flight attendants. Some of the commuting flight attendants spent the night in operations and the other pilot and I went back to sleep in our rented apartments in the area (i.e. the “Crash Pad.”)

The rare daytime flight the next day made it possible to glimpse much of the Amazon rain forest along the way and to appreciate just how massive this country is. To give you an idea of just how big Brazil is, our typical crew rest break on the 9 hour and 15 minute flight from New York is about 3 hours. On the way home, it’s possible for the first pilot to finish their break before ever leaving the Brazilian airspace.

I’ve flown in some areas with poor ATC reception, most notably Piarco radio in the Caribbean, but nothing has been more challenging for me than Brazil. The VHF transmitters are spread out over vast areas. Often two transmitters will be operating at the same time which causes a distracting echo over the speaker. The HF radios we use when flying across the Atlantic would be an improvement from this system.

Traditionally they’ll give you two VHF frequencies at a time, a primary and a back up and we find ourselves choosing the least annoying one as the flight progresses. It’s possible to fly for hours while talking to the same controller on a variety of different frequencies spread out every 200 miles. I suppose, to be fair, it’s not easy to install more transmitters in the dense Amazon jungle.

As we arrived early in the morning at the hotel, I was startled to see a massively vertical mountain shooting up from the side of our hotel building. The waves below the mountain were more powerful than any I’d ever seen, and I stayed awake for a while to watch them hit the rocks and shoot up over spectators perched at lookout points along the road.

There’s plenty to see and do in Rio, but alas, we’re usually asleep for much of the first day there and unable to enjoy the sun.

Ever since the exchange rates for the Real were changed, the dollar doesn’t go as far as it used to. It’s not quite as expensive as some European destinations, such as Zurich and Paris, but it’s close. Dinner at an inexpensive cafe three blocks inland from the Ipanema beach ran about $30 with drinks.

I’ve recently become interested in paragliding (watch for a future Cockpit Chronicles on that) so I hitched a ride to the top of a local mountain to watch the hang gliding and paragliding pilots takeoff on tandem flights for tourists to Rio. I elected to save my money and enjoy the spectacular launches from the platform instead of flying as a passenger. Besides, hopefully I’ll get the chance to fly my own paraglider from the hill someday.

Even though it was only 72 degrees, I managed to get rather sunburned while filming all day, but the footage was worth it:

In order to see more of the city, I knew I’d have to get a longer layover there. Fortunately, once a week during the summer we’ve had a six-day trip that includes four days there instead of just a day and a half. I managed to snag one of these in early October much to my delight.

The captain and his flight attendant fiancée on this long trip, happened to be friends of mine who were formerly based in Boston, so we made plans to see the Christ Redeemer statue that overlooks the city. They also wanted to try a tandem hang gliding flight, and of course I knew just where to take them.

A shuttle bus takes you up to the top of the Christ Redeemer platform and it was probably more scary and dangerous than the hang gliding flight for Susan and John. The expansive 360 degree views of Rio from the top of this mountain made it worth the risk.

Our flight home was delayed due to another late inbound aircraft, so we had plenty of opportunity to take a long nap before leaving the hotel. These daytime naps are critical as the flight time is well over ten hours on the leg home to New York and that extra sleep comes in handy when you’re working your way through the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone, an area of thunderstorms that have parked themselves near the equator while lighting up the sky.

Since Susan was working the galley, I had her explain how our crew meals are prepared and served for a video used in last week’s Cockpit Chronicles during Gadling’s week-long focus on food and travel.

I managed to snap a few pictures of these storms that lit up the clouds around them like a built-in long range flash for my camera.

After the first few trips I was surprised at how wide-awake I was during the flight. But it was a different story the next day. It was hard to recover sleep from the all-nighters but I have to admit, Rio de Janeiro is a welcome change from the European flying I’ve become accustomed to.

And that’s probably the best part about working for a major airline. If you get tired of flying in one area, you can switch to a different base permanently like I did in May of this year or for as little as a month just to try a whole new type of flying.

Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in New York. Have any questions for Kent? Check out the Cockpit Chronicles Facebook page or follow Kent on Twitter @veryjr.