Plymouth Rock.
The drive to Plymouth would take about an hour and a half. We left about 4 PM. I had booked a Lantern Tour of Plymouth for 7 PM, so we should have plenty of time to drive down there, eat dinner, and then take the tour. But, as we started driving south I started to wonder about Boston traffic. We would be hitting Boston at the start of rush hour. It was a Thursday, and didn’t have to go through the most congested areas of town, but still. I have driven in Washington DC, Chicago, and Los Angeles. Traffic can stop and crawl for hours at anytime. I had planned for us to stop in Quincy, MA, if there was time, and see the graves of the two Adams Presidents. They are buried at an old church, but I decided not to risk the delay. As it turned out things went according to plan and we were in Plymouth by about 5:30 PM.
We pulled into town and found our hotel, the Best Western Cold Spring. It didn’t take us very long to get unloaded, and then we drove down to the waterfront to find a place to eat. We had grabbed a local guide map and using that as a guide we found a nice place to park, near an Italian restaurant named Mamma Mia’s. I don’t know what kind of food I thought I would be eating in Plymouth, (maybe Turkey and Stuffing) but pasta and pizza wasn’t it. No matter, it was good.
We really had only killed about an hour with the hotel and dinner, so we still had 30 minutes before our tour began. So we wandered a bit on the waterfront. The shops were all closed, but across Water Street is Pilgrim Memorial State Park. The park covers just 11 acres, the smallest state park in Massachusetts, but it is the most visited on in the state as well. That is because it contains both a replica of The Mayflower and Plymouth Rock. We saw both, with Plymouth Rock being our final stop. Our lantern tour was going to start near there.
7 PM came and we met our guide and our tour group. This walking tour was called a Lantern Tour, because you really carry an old lantern. It serves the dual purpose of supplying a little light and to help traffic see you. My plan was take this tour, on our night here, because it would add some gravity and would educate us on what to see during the day. Since we didn’t take many (just one) pictures during the tour, and we ended up covering a lot of the same ground the next day, I’ll leave the history lesson for tomorrow.
But we had a great time. We saw and heard the stories of The Mayflower, Plymouth Rock, Governor William Bradford, Myles Standish, Massasoit, Squanto, Burial Hill, The First Winter, The First Parish Church, The Church of the Pilgrimage, The Engagement Tree, and Brewster Gardens. Our guide was very knowledgeable. He looked like a college professor with glasses and long thinning hair. The tour took about 90 minutes and we walked all over the waterfront and surrounding area.
We had gotten a look at Plymouth Rock while we waited for our tour to begin. It had been light then, and we weren’t terribly impressed by the rock. I kind of already knew that the Pilgrims didn't really first set foot on Plymouth Rock, so the bar wasn't set very high there. Plus with the Rocky Mountains in my backyard, seeing a large boulder is nothing to get excited about. And this was just a big rock, with 1620 carved into it. I guess I will be conferred to some circle of tourist purgatory for that remark. But, we were impressed by the columned structure they had built around it. To me it looked like a portico, with no building. But, it just seemed to project a sense of grandeur that seemed misplaced. But, after all, it is still Plymouth Rock, so just a wrought iron fence was not going to do. Still, I had to take a picture, which ended up being the only one we took today, in Plymouth. Tomorrow we would rewalk most of the tour to see it in the light, and actually visit Burial Hill.
Very Pretty with a Campus Feel
The Best Western Cold Spring in Plymouth, MA does a lot of things right. They have very good customer service. The employees all smile and greet the guests. Even the housekeepers smile and ask how you are doing. The grounds are beautiful. There is a lot of care done with landscaping. There are trees, scrubs, and flowers all around. It, combined with the hotel’s location in a more residential type setting, give it a campus feel. The continental breakfast is good. No hotel that advertises a “Continental Breakfast” is going to have bacon and eggs, but there is fruit, a couple of kinds of juice, pastries, and a waffle machine. The breakfast room is spacious and clean and very new looking.
This hotel has been around for at least 60 years and was known as the Cold Spring Motel and Guest Suites before joining the Best Western family in 2003. Even though the rooms have renovated in the last 10 years, the one we stayed in, seemed dated. It was comfortable, clean, did not seem worn, but there was dark wood and other things that called out to a bygone era. That is not all bad. When on vacation a feeling of nostalgia is called for.
Every room is on the ground floor, except for one building, which has a second floor. The buildings are spread out over 5 acres. That added to the campus feel.
We enjoyed our single night there and would not hesitate to go back
Best Western Cold Spring (photo
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Breakfast Area (photo courtesy o
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Very Historic Rock
Plymouth Rock has two things going for it. First, we learned all about it (but, what we learned was wrong) in elementary school. That carved it permanently into our psyche. When we hear Plymouth Rock it brings back memories not so much of American History, but a simpler time in our own lives. The second thing Plymouth Rock has going for it is that it is free. If you are in Plymouth, you can walk up to it and stare to your heart’s content for hours on end, and at any time of the day or night. However, both of those points burn away quick as you realize that Plymouth Rock is just a boulder sitting in the sand. Granted it is a much revered boulder, with an impressive portico built around it. But, it is still a rock.
With those facts established, you should visit anyway. Visiting Plymouth Rock is one of those things that every American should see, especially if you are in town. It doesn’t have the grandeur of the Grand Canyon, or the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. What it does have is bucket loads of symbolism. It is like visiting your great-grandparents grave. You do it to pay your respect to those who came before you.
Visiting the Rock doesn’t take long, and it will give you an opportunity to tour the Plymouth waterfront. Just do it.
Plymouth Rock portico
Cool way to get your history
I became a fan of walking tours back in 2000 when we took an impromptu ghost tour in Harper’s Ferry, WV. You get a good taste of local history, presented in a way that even kids like. So when I was looking for something to do in Plymouth, I found Colonial Lantern Tours on the web. They offered a 7:30 PM tour of the waterfront area. In addition to the information and exercise, they promised to do it under the light of lanterns.
I book the tour for Margo and I and we met near Plymouth Rock to start the tour. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable and I learned quite a bit about Plymouth and the Pilgrims. As promised we each got to carry a candle powered, tin lantern, which really added to the ambience of the evening. The tour lasted about 90 minutes and we saw everything there was to see in lower Plymouth; Plymouth Rock, Mayflower II (from the outside), the sarcophagus where those Pilgrims that died the first winter ended up; Town Square, Cole Hill, The Marriage Tree, and on and on.
The cost was $15 per person, and you walk most of the 90 minutes. Some of that is uphill, but it is all on paved roads. Next time we are in Plymouth we will be back for their ghost tour!
