Arrival in New England [Part 1]

We are at the start of a brand new travel series. This time Jasmina, Selma, Amer and I will be visiting the 6 states of the USA that make up New England (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont) as well as the state of New York. It's a region well known for the rich history and wonderful colors of autumn. Luckily we managed to see a lot of beautiful fall foliage during our trip.

Pilgrims from England first settled in the region in 1620, forming the Plymouth Colony (a town which we would visit towards the end of our journey), the first successful English settlement in the Americas. Ten years later, more Puritans settled north of Plymouth Colony in Boston, thus forming Massachusetts Bay Colony. Over the next 126 years, people in the region fought in four French and Indian Wars, until the British and their Iroquois allies defeated the French and their Algonquin allies in North America.

This is only a part of our big travel series to the USA 2016

For the other parts click here

Up, Up and Away

Our journey begins after a 6 hour drive from Mostar to Belgrade. We arrived at Belgrade Airport in the night, slept a bit in the car, until eventually at 4 o clock in the morning the check in started. We flew with Lufthansa Airlines toward Frankfurt. There we had a 5 hour wait for our overseas flight to Boston.

While we waited in Frankfurt we made use of the Leisure Zone inside the Airport, which had really great chairs where we found some rest (mostly our backs who hurt a lot because of the long journey). It was a 8 hour flight from Frankfurt to Boston. In Boston we went through customs and rented our car, and our road trip was officially a go!

Danvers

It was 6 in the evening when we arrived at the Danvers Knight Inn motel. We had a pleasant stay here. Actually from the start we noticed how friendly people were in these parts of the world, something we would come to appreciate during our stay in New England. We drove through Danvers but didn't stay there. You can imagine how much we needed that shower after a 24 hour journey.

Right away I spotted the wonderful fall foliage in the motel. I loved the calm evening. It was just what we needed after such a long journey. But staying inside for the rest of the day was not an option. We needed to see more right away. The rush of discovery came over us, I guess. We decided to venture out to Salem, which is only a 20 minute car ride away from Danvers.

First night in Salem

I will be talking in detail about Salem in the next post, since we visited this town again next morning. At night Salem is quiet and empty looking. But it only appears so. People are inside bars and on night tours around town. Salem is of course known for witches and which hysteria back in the 17th century. As I said, more on that in the actual Salem post, here I only want to talk about our experience here on this first night.

Salem at night is actually a great sight. The streets are decorated for the fall season and Halloween, and the spooky history shines through in every corner. We parked our car on a small lot behind the fire station, where parking is free at night and kept exploring the town from there.

I tried to take these night shots with as few people as possible in them, just because I wanted to show the small town charm. Of course a lot about witches and magic has been heavily commercialized here, but still, the true feeling of the wicked past can be felt in the town squares and narrow streets.

A last few glimpses of Salem crowned our evening until we eventually returned to our motel. It was quite the contrast in this one day, and actually very overwhelming. This feeling would continue on our way through the many small towns and natural wonders of New England. More on that in the second part.