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P-Town Haven For Artists
Offers Alternative Culture
PEND
time at the edge of the sea and you’ll be drawn back for more. That’s
the hold Cape Cod has on you. Especially Provincetown, at the northern
tip, which beckons people for all the right reasons: art exhibitions
year round, Fellini-esque tableaux on the street, unabashed
camaraderie, gala gallery gatherings and fine food.
Originally a
thriving fishing village, P-town has become a vigorously thriving art
colony, the oldest in the U.S., with a population of 3,953, swelling
to 30,000 in summer.
It is such a
fountainhead of creativity that the Provincetown Art Association and
Museum has amassed 2,000 works representing more than 600 artists who
worked on the Outer Cape since 1900. The organization exhibits their
works here and around the country. www.paam.org.
Best way to
enjoy all the museums is to get a Passport to the Arts for $5 at the
Chamber of Commerce in Hyannis or at many of the banks, or at www.capecodchamber.org
or www.artsfoundation.org.
Your Passport permits access to some 20 museums throughout the Cape.
Between gallery
hopping, you will want to explore the wonder of the dunes at the Cape
Cod National Seashore. Preserved as a national park since 196, it
extends for 40 miles down the shoreline. It has six protected beaches
and two educational visitor centers. You’ll need a full day to
really experience the wonders of the dunes.
Art’s Dune
Tours will take you there. Call Rob Costa at 508 487-1950, or www.artsdunetours.com.
Go at sunset – it’s awesome!
On a one-hour
tour, our driver pointed out some of the 18 primitive shacks inhabited
by artists and writers, including Norman Mailer’s. Tennessee
Williams was also seduced by the dunes – he wrote The Glass
Menagerie in one of these shacks. Other dune dwellers included
Eugene O’Neill and Jack Kerouac.
The shacks have
no electricity or running water. Our driver calls the outhouse the
international house: "You’re Russian to go in, European inside,
and when you come out you’re Finnish."
See them while
you still can. The National Park Service is reassessing the future
existence of the dune shacks.
By now you must
be famished, but luckily you made reservations at L’Uva where you
select from French, Italian, Spanish and American cuisine menu. Chef
Christopher Covelli says, "I cook Italian by extraction and
French by concentration."
The wine list
offers 265 varieties ranging in price from $25 to $600. The most
edpensive is Solaia 1997 from Antinori in Tuscany. Try it.
Open 5:30 p.m.
to 1 a.m. with entrees ranging from $18 to $26. Located at 133
Bradford St., 508 487-2010, www.luvarestaurant.com.
Where to stay?
Check into the Crowne Pointe Historic Inn, a comfortable AAA
Four-Diamond resort.
This mansion,
originally built for a sea captain in the late 1800s, is set on a
bluff in the middle of town. Tom Walter and David Sanford acquired the
prized property and opened the resort six years ago. The resort is
connected, through beautiful gardens, to three restored carriage
houses.
All 40
distinctive guest rooms and suites have king or queen sized beds, and
many have fireplaces, two-person spa tubs and private decks.
Enjoy the
experience of its outstanding Shui Spa, featuring an extensive menu of
rejuvenating massages, soothing facials, body services and unisex
sauna and steam room. www.shuispa.com.
Located at 82
Bradford St. For information call 508 487-6767, or reservations 877
276-9631, or www.crownepointe.com.
Don’t miss the
Pilgrim Monument and Provincetown Museum, which commemorates the
Pilgrims’ first landing in the New World at Provincetown in 1620.
They wrote The Mayflower Compact, our first constitution, and after
five weeks sailed across the bay to Plymouth.
This 252-foot
Pilgrim Monument is America’s tallest all-granite structure. If you
hike up all 116 steps and 60 ramps to the top of the tower – and
your heart holds out – you’ll be rewarded with a magnificent
panorama of this colorful town. (Tell me about it. I found the climb
daunting.)
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