Cape Cod Area Information
Cape
Cod is a place for breathing deeply, taking a moment to stop and look
around, and being glad you are alive. Once you have experienced the natural
beauty and charm of the region, you will want to return to "Olde
Cape Cod", if only in memory.
The
"Cape", as it is fondly known to its countless admires, offers
some of America's most exceptional scenery. In 1961, President John
Fitzgerald Kennedy established the Cape Cod National Seashore. It includes
more than 50 miles of white sandy beaches and 27,000 acres of unspoiled
landscape.
Cape
Cod offers some of the most magnificent sand dunes and high sand cliffs
on the Atlantic coast of North America. Long stretches of sand beaches,
extensive salt marches, ponds, bays, streams, rivers, harbors, herring
runs, and world famous cranberry bogs are just a few of the many beautiful
facets that the Cape Cod landscape has to offer.
Besides
the abundance of summertime water related activities such as swimming,
boating, surfing, calming, and fishing, Cape Cod also offers antiquing
on the historic Old Kings Highway (Route 6-A), bicycling along the scenic,
25-mile Cape Cod Rail Trail, experiencing the excitement of a whale-watch
cruise, travelling aboard the Cape Cod Scenic Railroad, hiking the many
nature trails, or visiting the many endangered lighthouses and picturesque
windmills.
The
first people to discover Cape Cod were the explorers seeking gold, furs,
spices or whatever else could be found to bring them o wealth. Though
many believe the Vikings landed on Cape shores, there are no definite
records of early explorers until the year 1602, when Bartholomew Gosnold,
an Englishman seeking gold, anchored near Provincetown and was so delighted
with the numbers of codfish in the waters around his ship that he gave
the Cape the name it has borne ever since.
Cape
Cod is a sandy peninsula extending from the east coast of Massachusetts
into the Atlantic Ocean. It is in the shape of a fishhook or, for some,
of an arm bent at the elbow and forming a fist at land's end. Cape Cod
is about 70 miles long, from the town of Bourne in the west to Provincetown
in the northeast corner, and from one to twenty miles wide.
It
was in provincetown, on the tip of the Cape, that the pilgrims made
their first landing in 1620. It was off the shores of Provincetown that
the Mayflower Compact, the proclamation of freedom that was the forerunner
of the Declaration of Independence, was signed.
Our winter's are gorgeous!
Take a tour of Cape
Cod online right now by clicking here. (Clicking on this
link will open up a new window)
Cape Cod Divisions
Cape Cod is more commmonly known in 3 different sections. Click on the
areas you are interested in on this image or the links below it, to
read more. The Cape Cod Counties are divided as follows:
Upper Cape
(Closest to rest of Masschusetts)
