New Bedford is an interesting city of about 100,000 located south of Boston on Buzzards Bay, which leads directly to the Atlantic Ocean. It is by and large a working city and, aside from a small part of its downtown filled with some buildings 200 years of age, and its port with its many fishing boats, holds little of interest for the normal tourist.

Ita main interest is in its history. It was founded by Quakers, it was the whaling capital of the United States during the first part of the 19th century (and this country’s richest city), it was an active way station for the underground railway before the Civil War, it was a textile center during the early 20th century. Even today it is a major fishing port, where most of its boats leave port for 10  to 14 days at a time and return with thousands of scallops. A hard life, fishing is, and certainly not very lucrative.

The city’s biggest attraction is not the port, but the New Bedford Whaling Museum, which l expected to  like but wound up liking even more.

From the museum:

The pictures do not do it justice. At the museum, you learn about whales, about the study of whales, about whale hunting worldwide and out of New Bedford, about boats and oars and tools and clothing, about art, about the demise of the industry and the rise of the textile industry in New Bedford in its place. There are full size boats, more scrimshaw than you thought existed, maps and books, weapons, everything. We spent over 2 hours looking around.

We also went to the city’s small art museum,where we saw a nice glass exhibit, which included two by Chiluly. Here is one (which, to fool you, might be upside down):

We ate tonight at a remarkable restaurant, The Black Whale, located at the pier near the fishing boats. The food was good, the prices were fairly high, but the remarkable thing about it is its size and how crowded it apparently is at all times every day. This is quite a business, especially in a relatively poor city, but where most customers (from the license plates on the free parking lot) are local.

One of the reasons may be that there seem to be few restaurants and few hotels. So if you have a lot of room, a central location, good food and free parking….

Just a few more pictures from New Bedford. We leave in the morning.

The last? An extra large rooster, made up of discarded scrap material by 11 and 12 graders, copying something similar in Lisbon.

Today, we move west.