• Follow us on:
• Parents & Kids
• More...
  • Local News
  • Pets
  • Wedding Planner
  • Gay & Lesbian Weddings
  • eCape, Inc.

• lodging & rentals
• things to do
• towns & travel info
• wedding planning
• photos & more

Presidential Playground

For over a century, American Presidents have vacationed along our shores. Of recent years, Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton have sought rest and relaxation across Nantucket Sound on Martha's Vineyard. Before the Clintons, Ulysses S. Grant, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Richard M. Nixon sojourned briefly on the beautiful island.

Grover Cleveland summered often at Grey Gables in Bourne and even had a railroad station built to service him. You can see this historical landmark behind the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum on Aptucxet Road in Bourne.

On the mainland, John F. Kennedy naturally spent every possible moment in his beloved Hyannisport, a place, he recalled, "where no two summers were quite the same."

While he came home to sail, rest and relax, he also came for inspiration. "I always come back to the Cape and walk the beach when I have a tough decision to make," he said. "The Cape is the one place I can think and be alone.

The John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum

During your next visit, plan a visit to The John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum on Main Street, Hyannis. This multimedia exhibit focuses on years Kennedy spent on the Cape. View over 80 photographs, photomurals, and a video narrated by Walter Cronkite, among other exhibits. Although the museum is open year round, it has limited hours until mid-April. Call (508) 790-3077 to plan your visit.

Until then, relive the "Camelot Years" through a few quotations we've compiled, which reflect the vision, wisdom, courage--and extraordinary wit--of our 35th President:

• Forgive your enemies, but never forget their names.
• Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind
  -United Nations Address, September 25, 1961
• Victory has a hundred fathers, and defeat is an orphan.
• Is there such a thing as Shoppers Anonymous?
  -Upon receiving a $40,000 bill for his wife's clothes
• I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House-with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.
  -At a dinner for Nobel Prize winners.
• I have just received the following telegram from my generous Daddy. It says, "Dear Jack: Don't buy a single vote more than is necessary. I'll be damned if I'm going to pay for a landslide."
• I have the best of both worlds: a Harvard education and a Yale degree.
  -Upon receiving an honorary Yale degree.
• There may be thousands of American more qualified to be President than me, but the choice is between two: Nixon and myself.
• When we got into office, the thing that surprised me the most was that things were as bad as we'd been saying they were.
• Washington is a city of southern efficiency and northern charm.
• Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I am the only man standing between Richard Nixon and the White House.