Places, locale, resorts, vacations
This colorful building is the historical fire station at Ponce, PR. The building is still functional. This red and black building stood apart from the rest of the buildings in downtown Ponce, quite a contrast.
While driving back from Cabo Rajo to San Juan, the landscape kept shifting colors going from dark to light with the shifting clouds. This was taken during a sunny break. The colors are vivid yet seem to blend in to create one of those perfect landscapes.
Salem has been one historic place that kept whizzing in and out of my mind’s recesses over the last couple of years. So when my friend V told me that it was New England, I was happy but couldn’t make up my mind on whether to visit or leave it off my radar. We managed to check this off of our travel checklist thankfully on our recent adhoc and rather aggressive trip to Boston that included whale watching.
House of Seven Gables
Salem is well known in historic and gothic circles due to its infamous witch trails where thousands of innocent men and women were persecuted under the guise of witchcraft. The result – Salem is now considered to be one of the most haunted towns in US what will all the unhappy spirits lingering around. The place that prompted us to take a detour on our way to New Hampshire was the famed House of Seven Gables.
Salem Harbor
House of Seven Gables was made famous by Nathaniel Hawthorne in his novel “The House of Seven Gables”. Unfortunately I haven’t got around reading this book but while touring this house, the guide patiently explained every nook and cranny making references to the book as well. This 1668 colonial mansion facing the Salem Harbor is recognized as the oldest surviving mansion in North America. Originally built by the Turner family, the house was bought out and renovated by Hawthorne’s relatives the Ingersolls who renovated it removing some of the Gables. The house was restored to its former glory by Caroline O. Emmerton who started a foundation for funding this project. The most surprising aspect of this property were its tiny rooms and narrow staircases not to mention the low ceilings that presented plenty of opportunities for visitors to bump their heads against.
Situated across the Seven Gables is Nathaniel’s childhood home also overlooking the Harbor, one that he barely lived in but all the same has been restored to its former glory. A beautiful English garden surrounds these two properties providing a vision of an English country home living in perfect harmony. After touring the place, we proceeded directly to the Salem Witch Village where the ghost tours operate.
Burying Point Cemetery
While waiting for the tour to begin, we explored the Pickman House and the Burying Point Cemetery. The Cemetery looked serene yet haunted at sunset but not to be hampered, we did look up some of the tombstones the oldest dating back to 1792 or so. There was a store across Pickman House that advertised Spell Casting. The spell casting is done during the weekdays and more so around Halloween so we missed it.
The Candlelight tour began at 8 PM with reluctant visitors looking sheepish holding white candles in cups. The hour long tour takes you around some of the famous houses in the town some of which are – Pickman House, Burying Point Cemetery, Gedney House and the Old City Hall where lucky visitors can glimpse a ghost on the 2nd floor windows facing the road. Ghost tours apart Salem has some great restaurants that dish out some mean cuisines. So we skipped the tour towards the end and snuck into a restaurant for a quick dinner before heading out to New Hampshire.
Refer to Salem Gallery to view more photographs.
Suggestions – Avoid candlelight tours and instead take the regular ones as the regular ones let you in into some of the properties. You may also want to check up on listings for spell casting if you are interested to see how witchcraft works. 
For some reason I didn’t get the notification but joined late 
Waiting for traffic to clear…at Old San Juan
My take on Possibilities…
Endless sky endless possibilities – View from CN Tower
Where does this track lead to?? – Downtown Toronto
Does it lead into the ocean or what? – The 7 miles bridge en route Key West
Masks or Faces represent various human expressions and often may reveal or hide the exact expression of its wearer. Faces have been used across continents since time immemorial…be it when man was leading a nomadic life or has moved into a tribe or in modern times…as a masquerade.
This was taken during our stay at the Lowes Royal Pacific Resort, Orlando. There was this beautiful set of faces set on a wall by a corner.
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