Staying at the Saltwinds B&B in Hyannis

Sometimes people ask me where I get the inspiration of travelling to places that are so far away from my home.

My answer is always: I read (a lot). Some years ago, I read a novel by Mary Higgins Clark, Two Little Girls in Blue. In this novel on of the twin sisters is kidnapped and taken to a motel in Hyannis.

Of course I knew this was the place the Kennedy's had a home, but that was practically all. Together with my sister I searched the web and we found out Hyannis was quite a nice place to visit. Enough to see (not only beach and ocean) to interest us, because we are not people who want to sit near a swimming pool the whole day.

So we started looking for the best possible price in airline tickets and of course a place to stay. We did not fancy an expensive hotel, but decided to go for a B&B. Our search came up with the Saltwinds B&B, owned and exploited by Ginny and Craig Conroy on 319 Sea Street. It looked more than okay to us, but we were truly amazed by the price! To our standards (Belgium is a very expensive country) this was as cheap as could come.

                         

Also the first contacts with the innkeepers only promised we'd have a good time with them, so we took the plunge and made a reservation.

Boy, ,what a great holiday we had! The plane ride went rather smoothly, and we arrived at Boston Logan airport in the afternoon. There we had to catch the bus to Hyannis. Apparently we had just missed the previous one, and needed to wait another two hours. Ok, no problem. We had a drink and tried to adjust to the heat (that summer was very hot).

Once arrived in Hyannis, after a bus ride longer than usual because of the outgoing traffic, we found Craig waiting for us. He immediately took us to the B&B, where Ginny also greeted us and showed us to our room.

                                         

Nothing fancy, but it had all we needed: it was clean, and had a nice view over the garden. We even had a table outside where we could have breakfast or a drink.

We have stayed in 5star hotels and very luxurious B&B's, but what we especially liked about this one, was that Ginny and Craid were so friendly. They treated us not like guests, but more like friends and nothing was ever too much for them.

Ginny washed for us, Craig took us on tours of the town or drove us to the ferry's.  We often had a chat and after all of these years, still keep contact. I hope to be able to visit once more, but since my sister suffered a nasty accident last February, we need to make shorter trips as sitting still in a plane for a long time hurts her too much. Perhaps she'll get better as time goes by, we don't know and also the doctors can't tell.

Hyannis is nice place to shop (for us all these stores were so cheap) and it also had a lot of great restaurants (just ask Craig which are the best ones). Our favorite was Island Merchant and Embargo, where you have Spanish tapa style food. On Tuesday nights you could have tapa's for half the price!

Cape Cod is an experience in itself, and while in Hyannis, you should take the opportunity of visiting some of the other villages and also take a ferry to Martha's Vinyard or Nantucket. We also went to Boston for a day, to do the Freedom Trail and also for some shopping. Linens, underwear and shoes are way less expensive in the States compared to Belgium.