The road tracklog 
from Boston to Woods Hole
from 2011/07/11 to 2011/0720

Massachusetts played an important role in the history of the USA. In the 18th century  colonists revolted against the trade restrictions imposed by England which repressed it by the Boston Massacre in 1770. In 1773 Boston Tea Party was the release of the process of independence of the New England, its origin was a new tax on tea imposed by the colonial power.

In this day of November 11 commemoration of WWI dead I took a commuter from Middleboro/Lakeville to Boston where I arrived around 11:00 by a cold morning. But at KOA campground there is no shuttle to go to the station out of season, I overlapped my bicycle that I left there to take it again in the evening at the fallen night. In the USA Veterans' Day is a public holiday, families paced up & down the streets of the city. I put my steps in the Freedom Trail to learn the history of the independence of the USA. It starts at Boston Common to finish at the edge of the Charles River. I traversed it in four hours or so visiting the high places where Bostonians decided to revolt against the colonial power. I give some pictures without comments. I spent much time in the museums of historical buildings to understand the genesis of the American Democracy dissected by Alexis de Tocqueville.

Veterans' Day
Boston, MA 
11/11/2011 

The Freedom Trail
Boston, MA 
11/11/2011 

Boston, MA 
11/11/2011 

In the evening in the train back I learned that the commuter doesn't operate in the week-end. Saturdays, by a beautiful sunny and windy day, I decided to go from KOA to T-Commuter by bicycle to have a GPS tracklog. The KOA hostess gave me 3 miles as one way outdistance, the GPS gives 9,39km outward journey and return, the account is good.

Trace GPS de la route du Koa au T-commuter 
Middleboro, MA 
10/11/2011 

Monday morning I left again in expedition to Boston with the target to visit the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, MFA. On the way I strolled my nose in the wind up to Prudential Center Skywalk to have a panoramic view of the city from the top. In the early morning weather was still clear.

Then I continued my way to the MFA where there was an exhibit "Degas and the Nude", No Photo. The drafts and studying drawings show his pretty blow of pencils. Notes explain he attended high class brothels, as a painter (!), to rough out in situ women anatomies. The two shown photos are extracted from the site of the museum.

It is very vast and its collections cover all the artistic activities in the world. The walk in the rooms is a true treasure hunt. It would be necessary to program the tour to make a chronological visit by continent. I noticed that French painters and sculptors were in honor. With due respect to the faultfinders I am favorable to the purchase of these works by the foreign museums taking part in the diffusion of the French culture. The few given photos given are my favorite. The return in night to the KOA was sprinkled with drops of rain.

The third and last day of Boston visit was held by a gloomy weather but curiously hot and without rain. Before the opening of museums I traversed the Black Heritage Trail on the slopes of Beacon Hill where an important community of freed Blacks before the Civil war was. Much of them was wealthy businessmen helping their co-religionists established as servants, craftsmen or dockers. The 54th Regiment off Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry was the first black regiment recruited during the Civil war. The houses having belonged to them are private residences no worth visiting. The district is representative of the beginning of 1800's in Boston. It was very pleasant to stroll there.

Then I moved towards Cambridge where are universally famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology –MIT– and Harvard University, with more than 30,000 students. MIT Museum exhibits what was the cardinal point of great discoveries, robots and holograms. However I remained on my hunger I thought finding there much more itemss and explanations on the great stages of the scientific discoveries.

On the way I went along the grids of Harvard Yard whose gates were severely kept by vigils and policemen, no question of entering without pass this high place of formation of American capitalism.

Harvard Art Museums is a charming museum gathering some paintings by Picasso, European and American painters. I discovered there finally Klimt, representative of the Art Nouveau in Vienna -Secession- It presents also Buddhist and Islamic items as well as many drawings by Albrecht Dürer and his contemporaries. I found an enormous pleasure there.

Henri Moore, Reclining Figure 
Harvard Art Museums 
Boston, MA 
15/11/2011 

Albrecht Dürer 
Harvard Art Museums 
Boston, MA 
15/11/2011 

Finally Peabody Museum of Archeology & Ethnology are devoted to the First Nations both of North America and of Center and South. At the end of the afternoon I caught a Red Line subway at Harvard Square to take a train to Middleborough at South Station and my bicycle to return to KOA. I stayed one more day there.

Left in the late morning from Middleborough I arrived about midday in Plymouth looking for the site of unloading of the Pilgrims in 1620, Plimoth Plantation. The museum reconstitutes, on a vast ground, a village of Natives, Wampanoag, the village of the Pilgrims and, a crafts center and shop. The museum is devoted at the origin of Thanksgiving which would not date back to the Pilgrims, look at below, but of the middle of the 19th century, to seek on Internet using engines.

Site map 
Plimoth Plantation 
Boston, MA 
15/11/2011 

Both villages with costumed interpreters show, without ornament, life such as it was to be at that time, very difficult in this very hard climate. The site was occupied by a horde of rowdies schoolboys.

Wampanoag Homesite 
Plimoth Plantation 
Plymouth, MA 
17/11/2011 

English Village 
Plimoth Plantation 
Plymouth, MA 
15/11/2011 

In the Plymouth downtown on Waterfront a Mayflower replica which transported the 102 Pilgrims with 30 members of crew. The life during the voyage was very painful in promiscuity. Weather was degraded accompanied by a temperature fall and an icy rain.

 
Mayflower II 
Plymouth, MA 
15/11/2011 

Hwys # 3A & 6A from Cape Cod Canal to Eastham curves at some feet away from the sea crossing sumptuous small villages with white houses broods in the forests under a pretty autumnal light, a rapture. Salt Pond Visitor Center was very accessible, I was the lonely tourist. I have the privilege to listen to the litany of the seldom activities out off season that I visited, Nauset Light and Marconi Station Site, nothing to see, except sand. On the other hand the small museum exhibits some items worthy of interests.

 
Sandy Beach 
Cape Cod, MA 
18/11/2011 

I finished the afternoon by the visit of Provincetown where the Pilgrims approached Massachusetts on November 20, 1620 before being established at Plymouth. Provincetown Art Association & Museum, PAAM, presents paintings by artists of last century having found their inspiration in situ. The day was very sunny but swept by an icy wind, winter is coming.

 
WWI Monument & Pilgrim Monument 
Provincetown, MA 
18/11/2011 

The following day I strolled in Provincetown to seize the morning light. Then I went in Pilgrim Monument to climb it and to learn some more on the history of these pioneers animated by a rigorous faith, they named Puritans. They arrive 102, a baby born during the voyage et two dogs with 30 members of crew but at the end of the first year they were not any more than 53. They spent five weeks in Cape Cod before moving to Plymouth. The museum exhibits paintings of the village too.

Journey of Mayflower along Cape Cod 
Provincetown, MA 
19/11/2011 

The architecture of the monument took as a starting point the Palace of Sienna in Italy. It is 252 feet tall. The climb of 116 steps and 60 ramps is easy. It is the tallest all-granite structure in the USA.

At the beginning of afternoon I returned to Salt Pond Visitor Center to go for a long walk on the edges of Salt Pond and Nauset Marsh. I establish my bivouac on the carpark of Mill Pond in Chatham where I became acquainted with a speaking-French American family which had spent five years in Paris. Of course I had to tell my tour. I did not forget to point out to them the strange behavior of American who called the police to control me at the time of my bivouacs, they smiled.

Lighthouse 
Chatham, MA 
19/11/2011 

In this Sunday November 20 I continued my exploration of the Cape Cod coast. Alas no attraction was opened, closed for season. In Woods Hole I found a pretty bivouac at seashore at Oyster Pond. Along the pedestrian track a plate drew my attention, a poem by a woman living there of which the original is in Colorado.