Another long walk around the streets of Marblehead

Breakfast

Having gone to bed at 9.00pm last night I slept for a whole 6 1/2 hours, amazing for me. And I awoke at 3.30am feeling really refreshed and bright after the sleep. 

I got up and wrote the blog post about yesterday's great day. Then I made Drew some coffee at 5.30am and shaved, brushed my teeth and showered at 6.30am. 

As with yesterday, breakfast began at 7.30am, we were there on the dot. There were extra items because it was Sunday including peach cake and smoked salmon with capers and onion. However the cooked items did not appear until 8.00am, so we took slightly longer than usual over our breakfast. Though as with yesterday I began with a wholemeal bagel and creamed cheese.

The cooked items were sausage and French toast. Given the American habit of presenting French toast like a sweet item I opted just to have sausages - much to my amusement two links of sausage come out on a plate. Drew said my face was a real picture when this meagre offering arrived - I supplemented this with more salmon.

Peach Cake

Drew choose the Peach Cake for starters, and did opt for the sausage and French toast. He also had two pieces of sausage along with his French toast, which as I had feared was almost drowned in Honey. Drew who is a fan of honey thought it was heavenly.  

Sausage, French Roast and Orange

Walking in Marblehead

We came back to the room and by 8.30am we were again out for a walk. Today we had two objectives (as well as the fun of walking). First to walk to the northern part of the old town (we had gone south from the hotel yesterday) and secondly to go back to Our Lady Star of the Sea as I have a friend, Robin, who is a fan of stained glass, and Our Lady Star of the Sea has, unusually nice stained glass inside. 

The route was like this:

Sunday's Walk - Map courtesy of Google My Maps

Key
A (H) - Harbor Light Inn
B - Gas House Beach
C - Port Sewall
D - Boston Yacht Club
E - Our Lady Star of the Sea Church
F - Java Sun Coffee Shop
G - Waterside Cemetery
H - Harbor Light Inn

We left the hotel and came across the Sunday papers on the step. They were picked up before we went far, but we had time to photo them.


We went due north on Washington Avenue and past a lot of houses with the origin dates on them. There are way to many to include in a blog post, but all of them can be seen on Flickr. 

Haydn on Gas House Beach

Washington St became Orne St and we headed to its end which leads to the not so quaintly named Gas House Beach. While it doesn't look like much this beach is located on what is known as Little Harbor in one of the oldest sections of the Marblehead waterfront.  It was here, in 1629, that the first settlers established what they called Marble Harbor. (Incidentally the rock is granite, but the settlers thought it was marble). 

Boats in the fog

We then walked to Fort Sewall, surprisingly, given the bright day at Gas House beach and indeed in the town, Fort Sewall and Marblehead Bay was shrouded in sea fog. Though this gave Drew a chance to do some of his favourite shots of foggy scenes. The fog was light and quite high, nowhere near as deep and dismal as the fogs we encountered in 2009 along the Oregon Coast. 

Fort Sewall was founded in 1644 one of the earliest fortifications the British made in North America. They were defending the bay and harbour from French ships attempting to disrupt the fleet. Later the site was used by the USA to successfully defend against the British when they attacked from British North America (now called Canada) in the war of 1812. 

The lighthouse can be glimpsed beyond the boat

Fort Sewall is directly across the neck of the bay from the Lighthouse we visited yesterday. Though you could barely see it for the fog. Drew wasn't very impressed with the idea of a lighthouse that got lost in the fog! <<Co-pilot's note: It defeats all logic!!! The whole point of a light house is to prevent ships getting lost in the fog, why then would you build one you can't see in the fog - tell me someone!>>

Boston Yacht Club

We then strolled along the sea front passing another range of old houses and three or four seaside restaurants, one of which is likely to be our eating place tonight. We passed along the front of Boston Yacht club which looks very impressive.

We then came to part of the front which we had walked along yesterday, but whereas we turned left down Commercial Street on that occasion this time we turned right and walked up to Atlantic Avenue. Drew was intrigued to see a beauticians offering among its range of services - Vampire Facials, we didn't know that was a thing. But it clearly is!! 

Our next stop was to Our Lady Star of the Sea to take the photos of the stained glass. There are some lovely shots of windows commemorating Faith, Charity, Hope and Prayer. Others are of the evangelists and some of the prophets. They are all on Flickr for the keen stained glass viewers. Thanks to Robin for decoding some of them for us.

From the Church it was a short walk to the Java Sun Coffee Roasters place for a lovely Americano in a real china mug. I do so much prefer my coffee out of a 'real' cup. Polystyrene or even paper is just not the same. Drew having missed out on his muffin yesterday made up for it today with an oatmeal blueberry muffin which he scoffed speedily. 

From the Coffee place we walked up over the middle of the Marblehead Peninsula. Up Village Street towards the Western Bay, which lays between Marblehead and Salem. This led us to Waterside Cemetery which was founded in 1859, though most of the graves are modern. 

From the Cemetry we walked back through the old town down Green St and back to the hotel. Today we arrived back at 11.55am having walked a total of 4.9 miles (12,584 steps). 

It was time to go up to the room and start the time consuming task of loading the Flickr photos and naming them.