2016 Holiday Day 5 - Old Sturbridge Village

After a bit of a poor night, it was good to get to breakfast and have cornflakes, banana and English muffin. I was saving room for lunch later. Clare had bacon and eggs, as she wanted to go through to dinner.

We had a reasonable drive ahead of us today up to Old Sturbridge Village, so we headed off about 8.45am and enjoyed surprisingly light traffic all the way up to the Mass Pike, where we stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for Matthew to sample a Vanilla Sprinkles variety (after sampling Strawberry Sprinkles previously he declared this to be equally as good). It wasn't too far then to the actual museum

Old Sturbridge Village is a recreation of a village/town that would have existed around the 1830s. It is another of these living museums, where characters are in various places in costume of the time, but unlike Plimoth Plantation, they don't stay in character - you can converse normally. They are more there to relay the history of the place and the practices and customs of the time.

Centre of the village and village green

We started with a orientation tour that seemed to go from the Village Meeting House every hour and our guide showed us round the village centre, pointing out places of interest and giving us a history of both the museum and the buildings around us. She also told us of what New England was like at the time and how life was transforming from subsistence to a post-industrial revolution society of trade and travel (although it still took 6-8 hours to get to the nearest large town by coach from Sturbridge - a half hour drive today!)

Free guided orientation leaves on the hour from the Meeting House

After the tour (which lasts about a half hour) we headed to the village store where we got chatting to the people inside about life back in the 1830's about how trade worked and about the sorts of goods that could be traded (the villagers traded rags and butter for goods from Boston that had come from across the world - England, France, China and many others). We also got into Brexit and Donald Trump's bid for the US Presidency, but that's a slight distraction!

Village Store

We then walked around the outskirts of the village, visiting the school house - where we learnt from the guide about the life of children back then - before visiting the farm, grist mill and covered bridge before heading back to the village for a musket firing demonstration. While Clare and Matthew were watching that, I took the opportunity to head to the Tavern for my lunch. I'd been hoping to snag a turkey dinner and I wasn't disappointed. For $9.99 I got turkey, corn bread and my choice of two sides (I went with mashed potato and stuffing) with cranberry sauce and turkey gravy. I've got to say it was all very tasty. If you are wondering what corn bread tastes like, it's actually not to dissimilar to a plain sponge cake - bizarrely enough!

We wandered over to the village bakery where the guide had told us good cookies baked fresh that day on premise were served, and they were indeed very good. I had oatmeal and raisin, Matthew had chocolate chip. We then went to a exhibition on guns and arms from the time and watched how a printing press was used to make newspapers and books.

Clare and Matthew had ice cream as it was becoming increasingly hot and they felt the need for a cooling refreshment break. We sat under a shady tree before heading to the bank to watch the banker tell of how loans were operated at the time (banking was to businesses, not personal accounts, at this time, although individuals could get a loan to build a house or such like if they were trust worthy enough)

We then headed to the gift shop and exit having had a great day. We drove home via Connecticut and Rhode Island (so Matthew could tick them off his 'US States Visited' list). We had more success with road signs this time, although got slightly way laid in Providence looking for the 195 - which seemed to run out of signs part way through the journey! We think it's because we were supposed to take the same route as to get to the 95, but they only showed signs saying '95'. Oh well - we had a nice tour of Providence! We stopped at McDonalds for Matthew to try a Chicken Nuggets meal - which he declared to taste 'a bit different' from home.

Back at the hotel it was time to hit the pool and grab a bite in the Tavern. Clare had an excellent steak whilst I had chicken and salad and we shared a Death By Chocolate cake.