Gloucester, MA

We had a lot of fun exploring Gloucester. On Friday morning, after a lazy breakfast of bacon and eggs, we took a cab downtown. As I mentioned, we timed our visit to Gloucester perfectly (without even knowing it!) since it was the St. Peter’s Fiesta. There were lots of activities going on downtown, but we began our tour by walking along the water and seeing both the Fishermen’s Memorial and the Fishermen’s Wives’ Memorial. Since it wasn’t raining, we decided to keep walking and ended up at the Stage Fort Park, which features a huge playground, two beaches, lots of people walking their dogs, and beautiful views of the harbor. After the Fort, we walked back towards St. Peter’s Square, visited the house and statue of painter Fitz Hugh Lane (picture below), and saw the shops downtown. When it started to rain again stopped for lunch.

Afterwards, we headed back down to the beach to see the start of the Greasy Pole Contest. The Greasy Pole contest involves a 45 foot pole 200 feet off the beach in the water. The pole is greased and the object of the contest is to walk the pole to the end and capture the flag without falling off. The picture below is taken from the beach (which we shared with about 3,000 people) and is of the pole, the boats rafted up to get a front row view of the contest, the Navy ship, and the various Coast Guard and Police boats. There were 51 Gloucester men (many dressed up and most intoxicated) all vying for the title this year. People in Gloucester apparently take this contest very seriously.

The event took longer than usual since the Coast Guard ordered everyone off the beach / pole due to an impending lightning storm. After a short delay, the contest started and Bill and I enjoyed watching the festivities. It was certainly unlike anything either of us had ever seen.

We enjoyed a delicious sushi dinner before returning to St. Peter’s Square in time to see the procession of local Italian families carrying the statue of St. Peter and the blessing (in Italian) of the statue – which, again, was unlike anything we had ever seen….. All in all, it was a really fun, unique and interesting afternoon and evening.