A Photo Tour through New England

It’s been thirteen days since we’ve returned home, though it’s felt longer. Hard to believe that not even two weeks ago, my boyfriend and I were sitting street-side at a café with cannoli and cappuccinos and two healthy pours of chianti, not a Zoom meeting or to-do list in sight. It had just rained, and a rainbow arced over rows of brick tenement houses that lined the charming city street. Harried locals laden with kids and groceries, enthusiastic tour groups, couples out for a night on the town, all passed by our table and alike took note of the sky.

One man, seemingly unconcerned with meteorological phenomena, busied himself with the human spectacle that was unfolding behind us. No doubt destined for the bannals of TikTok, he set to recording and providing commentary to a long line of people that wrapped around the block into the very same bakery from which our cannoli were recently procured.

Turning my attention back to the assortment of pastries before me, I attempted to answer the question that my boyfriend had just posed – “What possesses a person to film something like people standing around in a line?” When no satisfactory response came to mind, I countered by asking him if the cannolo he was quickly in the process of devouring answered his previous question – “Why would anyone stand in line for cannoli?” And while he did admit to the superiority of these particular specimens to others he’s tried, he remains unconvinced that they are worth the wait in line.

But I am not here today to discuss matters of taste, poor or not, nor the merit of cannoli, even a particularly good one, but to share with you tidings of my recent trip. If my above description leads you to believe that the setting for this holiday was some picturesque European town, one where people might queue or wait on line for their baked goods, I’m afraid I have mislead you. In fact, other than the airspace we traversed to reach the other side of the country, we never left American soil.

Though it could be said in a way, with a bit of stretching, that the experience was off-continent, as on that particular day, we found ourselves in Boston’s Little Italy, also known as the North End and the home of Paul Revere (himself an avid fan of the cannolo, I hear). It was our last full day in Boston and the final stop on our tour of New England.

It was not the trip we had set out to take. But as with many well-laid plans that went to hell in the travel-restricted pandemic era, it was the trip that was available to us. Originally, we were meant to be in Europe for nine days – three nights in Prague and five in Lisbon with a one-night stop over in Munich in between. From there, we were to spend several days visiting my grandparents in upstate New York before flying home.

The months leading up to our trip looked promising, with relatively open international travel, but as the dates drew closer, things began to look increasingly dubious. In late August the EU recommended that all non-essential travel from the U.S. cease, and with that, our big plans were finally laid to waste. So less than two weeks out from our original travel dates, we changed course entirely. Building off of the one piece that would remain constant, upstate New York, we decided to turn our European tour into a New England road trip. The new itinerary had us in Vermont for three nights and New Hampshire and Boston for two each, with six nights upstate at the grandparents’ on the first leg and one night in New York City on the tail end.

For those unfamiliar with American geography (and as a reminder for any like myself who keeps forgetting), the state of New York is not considered to be a part of the New England region. I will therefore restrict the photo essay that follows to the club members of Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. Though we did not make it to Rhode Island on this particular trip, I’m cheating and including photos from my past travels there – all in the name of providing you with a more comprehensive account of the region.

As to the remaining two New England states, I do not have pictures of either to share here, but let the record show that we did manage to visit both during our trip (if you count a five-minute detour into Maine from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, just to say that we did it and a traffic-clogged slog through Connecticut to get from Massachusetts to New York). What follows are predominantly images of the built environment – brick-lined city streets, colonial churches, grand houses – that speak to both the typical style and diversity as well as the history of New England architecture. But to begin, some images of the region’s natural beauty. We start in the Green Mountain state, after all.