Experience the best of Cape Cod

Cape Cod curls out from the Massachusetts mainland like an arm bent at the elbow, cut off from the rest of the state by the Cape Cod Canal, which opened in 1914. The Cape Cod National Seashore, created in 1961, protects miles of beach, dunes and marsh on the outer shore, and towns such as Chatham, Falmouth and Sandwich keep white clapboard houses, village greens and harbours.

At the tip, Provincetown has art galleries, a long pier and the Pilgrim Monument, a granite tower commemorating the Mayflower's first landfall in 1620, before the Pilgrims sailed on to Plymouth. Whale-watching boats leave for Stellwagen Bank, and Hyannis is the ferry port for Nantucket, while Woods Hole is the port for Martha's Vineyard. The Cape Cod Rail Trail follows an old railway through woods and ponds.

Clam chowder, fried clams, lobster rolls and Wellfleet oysters come from the cold waters around the Cape, and cranberries from local bogs are harvested in autumn. Summer is the busy beach season; autumn brings quieter lanes, and winter is windswept and calm.