Gloucester: picture perfect
CHRISTINE HICKS- USTA Travel
When I was a little girl, my grandmother lived with us in an apartment built just for her above our garage. She was an interesting woman in so many ways, an artist who knew how to make just about everything - or so it seemed to a 6-, 7-, 10-year-old me at the time. My grandmother attended Pratt Institute, and while she never practiced her serious artistic talents for pay, everything she touched had a little artistry to it. She painted wicker baskets, cut linoleum dies for Christmas cards and would, at least annually, lacquer in black this small wooden stool and let us kids plaster colorful, tiny decals all over it. I still have that stool.

Widowed and an independent woman, she worked days at the hosiery counter at AM&A's. Her friends had great names like Velma, Helene, Silma and Martha. Martha played the harp, I remember distinctly, and had never married. She owned a home on Nassau in Kenmore, and my grandmother took road trips with her every summer.

The walls of her apartment were covered with prints. I remember (and someone in our family still has this) a Norman Rockwell print of the four seasons. And I remember especially her print of the town of Gloucester, Mass.

Gloucester… That print was of a street scene looking from atop a hill down a narrow, white road going down to the sea. Quaint cottages, whitewashed under a brilliant white and blue sky, lined the road, and cornflower blue and watermelon blooms clung to the rough walls of these small, sturdy cottages. At the bottom of the hill was the harbor of this old sailing port.

Gloucester was established in 1623, the country's oldest fishing community. It's a fisherman's working town, where the picture "The Perfect Storm" was captured on film. Bed and Breakfasts now welcome those going "down to the sea," and Rockport, its coastal neighbor, is a mecca for the artistically gifted.

Both are uber-packed during whale-watching season, in the spring and fall, though its short summer season is busy enough.

Gloucester is about 30 miles north of Boston. It's in the travel news because of a recently officially completed cruise terminal that welcomed the ship the Seabourn Pride last October and expects to have a good deal more cruising company since its official Memorial Day opening. Smaller vessels, such as those in the fleet of American Cruise Line and Cruise Norway, are set to pay calls there this year. Holland America will join these lines in 2008. While only ships 500 feet or less can actually dock at the Cruiseport Gloucester Marine Terminal (the official name), longer vessels are welcome to bring passengers in by tender.

In an earlier time, Gram and Martha piled into the glossy black and white Buick - rather like a giant saddle shoe - and drove, scarves flailing in the breeze, to Gloucester. As with all of their trips, five, six or seven days later they would return, full of stories, bursting to share their adventures, and souvenirs… like the Gloucester street scene painting.

(Christine Hicks-Usta has enjoyed more than 30 years of globe-trotting as a member of the travel industry in various capacities. Direct questions to her at Bee Group Newspapers, P.O. Box 150, Buffalo, NY 14231-0150.)