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Fresh lobster, salt water taffy and Motif #1...

Rockport is one of those aborably quaint little seaside towns along the coast of Mass. Lots of little wooden houses and seashells and colorful bouys displayed as decoration. Lisa and I spent the day Saturday enjoying the sunshine and warm, sea breezes of this tiny tourist town on Cape Ann and somehow did a lot of eating... After purchasing some much needed hats (to keep the sun from frying our heads), we stopped in at Roy Moore's excellent Fish Shack where they boiled up lobster right there, sliced them open, plopped them in paper trays with a cup of melted buter and sent us out back to the balcony where we sat at wooden tables and dug in! Was sooo delicious!

The rest of the afternoon we explored all the interesting little shops and nibbled on fudge, chocolate covered cherries and salt water taffy and cooled off with lemonade and iced tea.  Everywhere you looked in Rockport was something fun to see - the Victorian style houses, the lobster boats gently floating in the water, the tidepools and seagulls down at the tip of Bearskin Neck.  Here's a write up about it...

Bearskin Neck, Rockport

Bearskin Neck is a small neck of land that juts out of the town center into Rockport Harbor. Legend has it that the small peninsula is so-named for menacing bears that early settlers routed onto the neck and hunted. Rockport's early fishing and granite industries made Bearskin Neck a busy commercial dock area owing to its convenience as a landing place. The tip of the Neck actually housed a fort during the War of 1812 which was fired upon regularly by British warships. Today the rocky end of the Bearskin Neck jetty offers a fine view of both Sandy Bay and the town of Rockport.

What really makes Bearskin Neck one of the principal attractions in Rockport however is the quaint little studios, shops, and restaurants that line its narrow roads. For Bearskin Neck is a bustling artist colony where one is just as likely to see an artist at his easel as a lobsterman hauling his traps. The tiny studios surround a famous old red fish house known as Motif #1. The "Motif" was originally built in 1884 and has had to be rebuilt several times due to the ravages of nature. It's still a treat for the eyes however, and is said to be the most photographed building in the country. Bearskin Neck offers something for every visitor and is well worth the trip to one of Cape Ann's easternmost points.

Unfortunately, the only downer of the afternoon was when we needed to head back to the train and my favorite denim jacket was no longer in my possession.  I stopped into almost every shop we had got to, but never did find it... This fruitless search had us, of course, booking it for the train eventually - sweating in the 90+ degree sun - and almost missing it.  The conductor was kind, though, and held the door for us and we jumped on breathless and red-faced!

Back in Boston, the culinary fun continued as we headed to the Back Bay area to find cheap Spanish tapas at Tapeo, on Newbury Street.  This lively spot in the bottom two floors of a brownstone serves excellent tapas, which are even MORE excellent since they only charge $5 a plate if you sit at the bar!  We were lucky and caught a group of people just as they were leaving and got seats right away.  A pitcher of sangria and MANY tapas later, we ended our day, sated and happy and just a little sunburnt...  

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