July 4th Photos

Here are some more pictures from last year's July 4th Celebration on Derby Wharf at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. This year's celebration starts at 4pm on the 4th.

The Kidspace opens at 4pm.

Pack a picnic and hang out on the lawn!

Music on the Main Stage begins at 5pm with Sandra Lee.

The Hillyer Festival Orchestra begins at 7pm


The cast of Footloose from Summer Theatre at Salem State College will entertain us during intermission.


Fireworks over Salem Harbor at approximately 9:15pm.

It is an excellent, patriotic celebration of our Independence Day!


All photos (c) Scott Lanes.

What's the Best Way to Visit Salem?

It's been a busy day, so I'm going to let the blog post speak for itself. Spend 30 seconds getting excited for Salem - and look for this ad on WBZ and Channel 38 in July and August. I hope it inspires you to plan your next trip to Salem soon!

(If you are receiving this blog as an email, please click through to see the video.)

Trashimals at the PEM

I stopped into the Peabody Essex Museum on Friday to see the Trash Menagerie exhibit, and it was fantastic. I highly recommend adding it to your itinerary when you visit Salem.

My traveling companions (we'll call them my "focus group") were 8 and 5, and I could have left them at the Trashimal table for hours. This exhibit definitely passed the kid test.

Trash Menagerie is a celebration of the recycled. The animals on exhibit were made from umbrella pieces, old bike parts, corrugated cardboard (like them monkey on the right), bunt pans (My favorite! The green glowing centipede on the right.), campaign buttons, pots and pans, plastic bottles, old sweaters and more.

The artists' creativity inspired my kids to want to go home and make something out of nothing, and the recycling bin is now considered art supplies.

The kids really enjoyed the Trashimal board where they could use magnetized features to create their own animal - real or fictitious. We had a 5-headed-animal and a 2-headed-bird before too long.

Now, we went to the museum specifically for the Trash Menagerie exhibit, but the banner promoting the Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes exhibit absolutely drew in my 5 year old. so the focus group headed upstairs to this wonderful new exhibit of seascapes painted by the Dutch masters.

This gave me the opportunity to talk to the kids about art and looking at art - we talked about angry water, and rainbows, the very big ships sinking, and how amazing it was that a painter can make all of the details of a ship's rigging look so real.

The Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes is certainly not an exhibit geared for young children, but it was fascinating, nonetheless. There is a conservator's station in the exhibit, which fascinated the kids just as it had fascinated me when I first saw the exhibit.

The Boston Globe and The Salem News and Northshore Art Throb have each covered the Golden Age of Dutch Seascapes. I recommend checking them out, and then visiting the PEM for the Trash Menagerie, the Seascapes, and everything else. It's a brilliant place to spend the afternoon.

Salem Farmer's Market

The Salem Farmer's Market kicked off its 2009 season - the first of what we all hope is a grand annual tradition! It was awesome. I know how hard Salem Main Streets and the Farmer's Market committee has been working to pull this together, and they did a tremendous job.

Hats off to Mother Nature for giving us a break in the clouds for the market! Moods were high, sales were strong, and the place was packed. When Mayor Driscoll rang the market bell at 4:00 PM Sharp, I was standing next to the Gibney Gardens table where stacks of monkey bread stood ready to sell, and sell they did! About 6 loaves flew from the table with magical speed. It was quite something.

I took a few pictures of the market - which will be every Thursday through the end of October, 4pm - 7pm. More than 100 downtown businesses are staying open late on Thursdays, too, so make sure to allow time to shop or grab a bite to eat before or after the market.

Chef Tony Bettencourt from Sixty2 on Wharf did a cooking demonstration, preparing Gnocchi (with Risotto, I think?). There was music, and vendors were selling everything from strawberries to hanging plants, soaps, lobsters, fish, cookies (really good cookies!), zucchini, lettuce.

Next week we'll see peas, as well as more lettuce. I'll find out what else we can expect (more monkey bread!!) and post it on Wednesday.

Hope to see you next Thursday!!

One of Salem's FAM Tours

Destination Salem hosts dozens of familiarization (FAM) tours a year. Here's a picture of our new friends from the UK, who were in Salem last week.

Left to right, we have Gemma from Bon Voyage, Laura from America as You Like It, Julie from MOTT (the Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism, the people you want to talk to when you want to explore the rest of Massaachusetts - after you're quite done in Salem, of course), Tim from Thomas Cook, and Nan from New England Vacations. On the far right is our Trolley driver and guide extraordinaire, Ron.

This group was on a whirlwind tour of Massachusetts, stopping in Salem as part of a 10-day journey that took them to Boston, Plymouth, Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket, and to the outlets in Wrentham.

I have it on good authority that visitors from the UK love to shop for jeans and shoes when they come to Massachuestts.

We made the most of their 14 hours in Salem - they stayed in The Salem Inn, had dinner at Capt.'s, explore the nightlife on Washington Street at Rockafellas and Gulu Gulu Cafe, saw the city from the Salem Trolley, and visited the Salem Witch Museum.

They were most disappointed to have to leave at about the time the shops were open, because a couple of our guests really wanted to have their Tarot read at one of the witch shops. Next time, ladies!!

I hope Tim, Nan, Gemma, Laura, and Julie left with a better understanding of Salem as a destination for their clients and guests. And if you are in the UK looking to book a trip to Massachusetts, I hope you will look for these companies and their itineraries that include Salem!

Welcome to the World History Association

This week Salem welcomes the World History Association's 18th Annual Conference.


I would like to extend a warm welcome to the 400+ historians, teachers, academics, conferees and their families who are coming to Salem to explore the theme of "Merchants and Missionaries in World History." I hope you have a great conference, and a wonderful experience exploring Salem!


I wish it were sunny with blue skies so the welcome banner looked a bit more exciting over Essex Street, but I am optimistic the weather will break and all of Salem's guests will have a somewhat dry (or at least dryer) experience during their stay.


So, in honor of the World History Association coming to Salem, I have a few Salem trivia items for you - all along the theme of Merchants and Missionaries in World History.

• In 1798, Salem residents pooled their money, their lumber and their time to build the frigate Essex for the US Navy. This wasn't unusual behavior for Salem residents - in the 1920s residents of Salem pooled their resources and took out subscriptions to finance the building of the Hawthorne Hotel.

• Salem native Nathaniel Bowditch wrote the definitive navigation guide, The New American Practical Navigator, in 1802. The Bowditch, as it is commonly called, can still be found on the bridge of US Navy vessels today.

• The Salem Athenaeum (pictured) holds what was once considered the finest scientific library in the United States. Novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne was a member of the Athenaeum, which still operates in its Essex Street location today.

• The Salem Maritime National Historic Site is the first national historic site in the National Park system.

• Merchant Elias Hasket Derby opened trade between Salem, China, and Russia. He was America's first millionaire. His home is part of the Salem Maritime National Historic Site, and is open for guided tours.

• Finally, The Ye Olde Pepper Companie (pictured) produces the Gibralter, which was the first commercially produced candy in America. Because of the Gibralter, Salem was once known as the candy capital of the world, and ships sailing from Salem would be wont to leave port without a load of the candies on board! You can still purchase Gibralters, and a host of other sweet treats, at Ye Olde Pepper Company on Derby Street across from the House of the Seven Gables.

Salem is a fascinating seaport! Enjoy your visit!

Salem Will Celebrate the Fourth!

The Fourth of July is coming... despite all appearances, it really is summer, and next weekend (not this weekend) Salem will celebrate the Fourth of July on Derby Wharf for the 9th time! This is a great celebration that is fun, patriotic, celebratory, beautiful, and fun. Did I mention fun?

This year we will applaud the return of the Hillyer Festival Orchestra to the stage, we will ooh-and-ahhh at the military flyover, and we will delight in fireworks overhead as we listen to the 1812 Overture. We will clap along to Footloose with the cast from Salem State College's Summer Theatre, and we will picnic while Sandra Lee sings to us as the opening act.

The kids will dance, make patriotic crafts, and have red-white-and-blue shapes painted on their faces. There will be funnel cake, hot dogs, pizza, ice cream, and kettle corn.

We've done this in the rain. We've done it in shine. It's a wonderful Salem tradition that is all at once American, New England, and all of us who attend.

It all starts at 4pm on July 4th at Derby Wharf at the Salem Maritime National Historic Site. I hope you can join us. (Photography of July 4, 2008 (c) Scott Lanes)