My Cape Cod Favorites

While it's fresh on my mind I wanted to share with you some of my favorite Cape Cod places and activities. Since our friend Phyllis lives in Chatham most of the activities are centered around the southeast portion of Cape Cod, but it's easy enough to get to other parts of the Cape.

In no particular order.....

Running
While a portion of the Cape Cod Rail Trail runs through Chatham and is a great place to run, I've grown comfortable enough with the area to venture farther afield. Chatham's streets are very well marked so it's no problem at all to navigate. On my most recent trip I went for this 12.75 mile run:
(link here)

It's a route with great views of the water, a trip by the Chatham lighthouse, beautiful houses and some very tough hills. If you link over to the full map you should check out the route on Google Earth - it's very, very cool.

Ice Cream


No vacation is complete without ice cream - well... no summer vacation in any case. When we are in Chatham we pretty much go to Buffy's every day. Favorite flavors include Oreo, Coffee Oreo, and Chocolate.

Restaurants

Our friends Jim and Betsy originally told us about Marion's Pie Shop. Strange as it may sound, the savory clam pie is to die for; the sweet pies are fantastic as well. We usually bring a clam pie back to New York with us for the freezer.

This past trip we ordered pizza from a new restaurant just down Crowell Road from Phyllis' place: Sweet Tomatoes (the link is to some locations near Boston). I can confidently say the pizza from Sweet Tomatoes was better than any pizza I've had in 10+ years living in New York City. Check out the user reviews on Fodors.com - it looks like many others agree.

Our favorite place for fried seafood (clams in particular) is Cooke's (in Orleans on Route 6 near the Bird Watchers General Store (a great place for birding enthusiasts).

The clam strips, lobster rolls, fried scallops, and fried shrimp are all excellent.

Though Cooke's has been in the rotation for several trips and we usually go at least twice per trip, we branched out last trip to Captain Cass Seafood in Rock Harbor (Orleans). As you can see from the pictures it's pretty down and dirty, but the food is terrific, particularly the fried scallops (direct from Chatham and incredibly sweet).



Beaches

Skaket Beach in Orleans is our all time favorite.


It's a great beach for kids given a low tide that goes out half a mile (or more). Great tidepool exploring and terrific for sunsets as well.

After visiting a bookstore in Wellfleet on Sunday, we explored some of the beaches on the Cape Cod National Seashore.


Our favorite was called Duck Harbor Beach. As you can see from the pictures it was a stark gray day, which for me really brought out the beauty of the rocky desolate beach. I also liked that you could see the Pilgrim Monument in Provincetown off in the distance.





Sunrise

I've been to a number of sunrises at the Chatham Lighthouse and have never been disappointed.



Sunrise comes awfully early at this time of year - the sky starts getting light well before 5AM and official sunrise is around 5:15.

Provincetown/Pilgrim Monument

Finally - last but not least, Provincetown and the Pilgrim Monument. We've only been to Provincetown once but really enjoyed it. The highlight was walking up to the top of Pilgrim Monument on a beautiful day and enjoying the terrific views.


If you're intrigued by Chatham and the Cape and want to see some absolutely incredible pictures, check out Chris Seufert's photos on flickr; you won't be disappointed.

Have I left anything out? What are your Cape Cod favorites?