A Day in Mystic Seaport

Today was a hot and steamy day in Mystic. We went to historic Mystic Seaport, a re-creation of an 1800's seaport town. A few of the buildings were authentic to the area. Some were moved from other sites to complete the town, but four of the ships are on the National Historic Register. The ship in the photo above is of the Amistad, built right at the Mystic shipyard in 2000. This ship is a replica of the original Amistad that was the focal point of the 1841 Supreme Court case that was argued successfully by John Quincy Adams on behalf of 35 Africans, who had been kidnapped from West Africa, then mutinied to save themselves. Upon winning the case, they were returned to Africa. The replica was built to be a classroom and a monument to those who suffered from the slave trade.
It took us most of the day to tour the town, as there were many buildings and an active shipyard, which delighted Mel. In addition to the indoor ship yard, there was a working sawmill and a lumber yard that provides the wood for the rebuilding of the wooden ships.

Once we crossed the Mystic River to visit the town of Mystic. We drove down the roads along the river and were able to take this photo of Mystic Seaport from the opposite shore.

Again, here is another photo of Mystic Seaport from the opposite shore. Shown in the photo, are the Amistad to the left, then, the Charles W. Morgan, a whaling ship, built in 1841 and the Joseph Conrad, another whaler build in 1882. Both the Charles W. Morgan and the Joseph Conrad are ships on the National Historic Register.

After Mystic Seaport closed, we drove less than a mile to the village of Mystic and miraculously found an on street parking spot just as we crossed over the bridge. Mystic has two blocks of charming little stores so we did some window shopping. We closed our day with a pizza from Mystic Pizza. To our surprise and pleasure, the pizza was good, not as good as Chicago, but truly edible, especially the crust.

So we went home tired, sweaty, stuffed, but happy campers.