When the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower stumbled ashore in 1620, after a 66-day struggle across a wintry Atlantic, Cape Cod offered safe harbour. And hope. The settlement that grew up in their wake, Provincetown, today shines as a beacon that offers safe harbour in an America currently embroiled in stormy waters. And hope.
I make landfall just a few miles from where the pilgrims were saved. A simple plaque marks that spot. The first thing that strikes me is the hulking 77-metre tower erected in their memory. The second would have those immigrants from England turning in their puritanical graves. Half of the New York Store is a cheery traditional ice cream parlour; the other half revels as a cannabis dispensary, a fitting welcome to the most inclusive, progressive and tolerant town in New England, perhaps the US.
