Attractions

A Maritime Museum

The Cape Cod Maritime Museum at 135 South St. in Hyannis, on the eastern end of Aselton Park (tel. 508/775-1723; www.capecodmaritimemuseum.org) is small but interesting. The museum displays artifacts from ships that wrecked off the shore of Cape Cod and exhibits a collection of items from the United States Lifesaving Service, the precursor to the Coast Guard. The museum is open Monday through Saturday 10am to 4pm, Sunday noon to 4pm. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for students and seniors, free for children 6 and under.

Camelot on Cape Cod: The Kennedys in Hyannisport

It's been more than 40 years since those days of Camelot, when JFK was in the White House and America seemed rejuvenated by the Kennedy style, but the Kennedy sites on Cape Cod still attract record numbers of visitors every summer. In July 1999, when John Jr.'s plane crashed into Vineyard Sound, thousands visited the Kennedy Hyannis Museum to mourn the loss by viewing classic photos of the family in Hyannisport.

Images of Jack Kennedy sailing his jaunty Wianno Senior on Nantucket Sound off Hyannisport form part of this nation's collective memory. The vacationing JFK was all tousled hair, toothy grin, earthy charisma, and attractive joie de vivre. Remember Jackie sitting beside him, wearing a patterned silk scarf around her head and looking like she'd rather be in Newport, where no one had ever heard of touch football?

The Kennedys always knew how to have fun, and they had it in Hyannisport. And ever since Hyannisport became JFK's summer White House, Cape Cod has been inextricably linked to the Kennedy clan. Although the Kennedys spend time elsewhere -- working in Washington or wintering in Palm Beach -- when they go home, they go to Cape Cod. Generations of Kennedys have sailed these waters, sunned on these beaches, patronized local businesses, and generally had a high old time.

Meanwhile, much has changed since the early 1960s on Cape Cod, especially in the Mid Cape area. In those 40-plus years, the mall was built in Hyannis, and urban sprawl infested routes 132 and 28. Yet much, thankfully, remains the same. The Kennedy compound, with its large, gabled Dutch Colonial houses, still commands the end of Scudder Avenue in Hyannisport. Nearby is the private Hyannisport Golf Club, where Rose loved to play a short round on the foggy oceanfront course. The beaches here are still pristine.

To bask in the Kennedys' Cape Cod experience, visit the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum, 397 Main St., Hyannis (tel. 508/790-3077). Admission is $5 for adults, $2.50 for children 10 to 16, and $3 for seniors, and hours are from mid-April through October Monday to Saturday 9am to 5pm and Sunday and holidays from noon to 5pm. Last admission is at 3:30pm. Call for off-season hours. The museum shows a documentary on Kennedy narrated by Walter Cronkite and contains several rooms' worth of photos of the Kennedys on Cape Cod. The candid shots included in this permanent display capture some of the quieter moments, as well as JFK's legendary charm. Most of us have seen some of these photos before, but here they are all blown up, mounted, and neatly labeled; if you get confused about lineage, consult the family tree on the wall at the end of the exhibit. The last 3 years of JFK's life were a bit chaotic (some 25,000 well-wishers thronged the roads when the senator and president-to-be returned from the 1960 Democratic Convention), but he continued to treasure the Cape as "the one place I can think and be alone."

Busloads of tourists visit the Kennedy Memorial just above Veterans Beach on Ocean Avenue; it's a moving tribute, beautifully maintained by the town, but crowds in season can be distracting. Finally, you may want to drive by the simple white clapboard church, St. Francis Xavier, on South Street; Rose attended Mass daily, and Caroline Kennedy and several other cousins got married here.

Spend your day in the Mid Cape recreating like a privileged Kennedy scion. Rent a windsurfer at Kalmus Beach. Play a round of golf at the Hyannis Golf Club (tel. 508/362-2606), a public course on Route 132. Four Seas Ice Cream (tel. 508/775-1394), at 360 S. Main St. in Centerville, is a must. For lodging right in Hyannisport, stay at Simmons Homestead Inn, 288 Scudder Ave., Hyannisport (tel. 800/637-1649 or 508/778-4999).

Rose Kennedy once told a reporter, "Our family would rather be in Hyannisport in the summer than anyplace else in the world." And yours?