A Great Spur of the Moment Weekend

My husband Jack had a Board meeting to attend in Concord, NH on a recent Friday. I tagged along to keep him company on the drive. We left at Friday at 5 a.m. along with our 85 pound German Shepherd Faith. When she travels with us we have flexibility.

It's a 320 mile drive each way so, by the time the Board meeting ended at 5, we decided driving back that same night would be just too tough. Rather than just find a motel along the way we elected to divert a bit and head to the NH/MA coast and look for a New England B&B.

Using our smart phone and Google we settled on the Linden Tree Inn (www.lindentreeinn.com) in Rockport. Our original target had been Gloucester but we just could not find anything that appealed to us.

We made it to Rockport, checked in; walked Faith who loves sleeping in the car on trips like this when we stay at a place that does not accept pets, and walked down the hill into town for a great Lobster Dinner at the Fish Shack on Main Street. Jack had the boiled lobster and I had the lobster scampi which was exceptional. The strawberry shortcake for dessert was just like from the good old days, everything fresh and home made.

The town wraps around Rockport Harbor and is simply just a really terrific place for a get-away weekend with lots of interesting small shops and plenty of local places to eat, particularly fish in all of its many forms!View From Restaurant Where We Had Lunch

The weekend we were there was special with down town loaded with people milling about, local artists doing chalk drawings on the side walks, musicians playing at various spots all around the main square. The weather when we were there – late May – was spectacular so everybody was out with their cameras firing away.

Originally we planned to head back to New Jersey on Saturday but our early experience in Rockport on Friday night and Saturday morning was so good that we decided to stay an extra night. We hung around Rockport all day Saturday and then headed the 4 or 5 miles to Gloucester Saturday evening to check out the town and have dinner there. Frankly we were not equally impressed with Gloucester and the meal (Mussels and Lobster Rolls) we had at the Gloucester House was about average. However, the Maine Blueberry Shortcake was worth the drive by itself.

Judy Chapman

Obviously we were lucky we could get into the 24 room Linden Tree Inn, a Victorian B&B that has been in operation since the 1920's, at the last minute and equally lucky they had an open room on Saturday as well.

Tobey and her husband John met on match.com many years ago and have owned and been running the Inn for the past 9 years. Tobey seems to be the driving force behind the Inn and is the one networking the most with the guests. In her down time Tobey is into scrapbooking. John originally was a high school teacher in the UK prior to moving to the U.S. to marry Tobey. During the week John is now a professor in the business program at Bentley College. On the weekend he does the breakfast cooking. Almost every review of the Inn talks about the fresh, warm scones that are served each morning. The recipe is on the Inn's web site. It's worth trying.

The Linden Inn seemed to be sold out or nearly so on our weekend so, clearly if you decide to head to Rockport, book ahead of time. We plan to head back to Rockport again in September when Jack has his next board meeting.

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you have any favorite B&B you would like to share with the rest of us.