Journey from olde Salem to New Salem
The two Salem towns covered in this article are:
- Olde Salem-witch central
- New Salem-Quabbin reservoir
But according to Wikipedia there are @48 Salem’s in the US. They don’t list New Salem so I guess there are now 49ish Salem’s. 🙂
This article will only cover exploring the two Salem towns in Massachusetts.
Witch Central or Olde Salem
Most everybody knows about Salem Massachusetts and the witch trials of 1692. They also know that Salem is witch central or Halloween town. A place that from the end of September through the end of October is brimming with Halloween goodness. BOO!!!
Witches, pirates, and Casper the Ghost can be seen roaming the streets of Salem during October. Samantha from the old TV show Bewitched is a permanent resident. (Although she is cast in bronze.) Nowadays you’ll probably see between 1 to 3 sets of the Sanderson Sisters, YOU, don’t know the reference??? Go watch Hocus Pocus, the movie. (Filmed in Salem and Marblehead)
Just in case you don’t want to fight with all the Halloween weekend traffic in downtown Salem, plan to visit on weekends prior to Halloween, and your traffic headaches will be much less. The weekends leading up to Halloween tend to be less crowded, but with the same or similar events going on. Palm readers, ghost tours, witch tours, and if those aren’t your cup of soup, real history tours as well.
Also, you can visit the nearby towns of Peabody, Danvers, or Saugus and enjoy similar historical stories and the fall foliage colors. In nearby towns, you will also find farm stands, corn mazes, and tours as well.
Read about how to find early fall foliage by reading this.
New Salem at the Quabbin Reservoir
Now!, Let’s go find New Salem. Several years ago, Lisa and I, had the opportunity to do a few days around the Quabbin Reservoir. We had no idea that this “New Salem” was there, but we always like to find and visit other Salems.
If you check the map below you can see that one of the easiest routes to take is the Mohawk Trail (Route 2) west of Concord Massachusetts. You then take 202 south at Orange and follow that down to New Salem and if you zoom in on the map you can see the roads that we took.
We were staying for the first time at Hartman’s Herb Farm and B&B. Lynn (the proprietor) gave us several suggestions, and during the afternoon we found our way to the western side of the Quabbin Reservoir where we saw a sign for New Salem. Now we were seeing good to really good fall colors, all around the Quabbin, but that didn’t prepare me for the CRAZY GOOD COLOR that awaited us…
This New Salem image was taken on 13 October and I’ve been back a few times over the years. This is the best that we have seen in the fall colors here in New Salem. You will also find a couple of churches up on the right. There is an old school building on the left along with an old one-room schoolhouse that houses the library. Have fun exploring.
You can view the town of New Salem on this map.
Jeff Foliage Folger
Autumn is a state of mind more than a time of year – Jeff Foliage
- Visit my Fine Art America Gallery
- Visit my Amazon store to pick up New England-related materials
- Visit my Pictorem Gallery (Free shipping in the US and Canada)
- My Facebook foliage page
- Threads.net/@Jeff_Foliage
- Follow our new Fall Foliage FB Group!
- You can visit Lisa’s Artist Facebook Page by clicking here
we would like to do some biking and enjoying the fall foliage! I can find biking suggestions and your foliage tour suggestions, but would like to have both together! can you help? since you know the area so well, can you suggest quiet/safe country roads suitable for biking and enjoying the fall foliage? we live in Missouri and will probably fly to Boston and rent car, but we could fly to a different place, if you have suggestions. we are open to almost anywhere in the New England states.
Hi Barb, well I have to admit I haven’t been on a bike in quite a while but there are so many bike tours that you can do that I don’t know where to start. I’ll throw a few links in at the end and you can do some research from there.
One thing you don’t say is are you two full time bikers? Meaning are you in shape for a long bike ride through rolling hills or are you looking for something more even like a trail made for biking. I mean we have the battle road in Lexington MA that has a nice historic ride through Concord towards Boston (about 16 miles, one way and then you have to turn around again.)
I was looking at some tours that involve wine tastings and wineries up near Stowe. So if you can leave a note on some of the particulars I might have a bit more to add.
Next! your dates.. If you’ve been over on my http://www.jeff-foliage.com website and done a little reading you will know that the earlier your dates the further north you will be looking for…
If you are a die hard bike fan and you just want to have me throw some roads at you to explore… I might say early Oct in Northern Vermont (north of Stowe) around Montgomery VT (Five covered bridges in that area) Also my wife says head even further north to Highgate springs taking Route 7 north to 78 west in Swanton which will take you over to Route 2 which will take you out onto lake Champlain… You did know there are a bunch of Islands out there that Route two follows south through North and south Hero.
Lisa says that this route is a popular with bikes since it’s quieter and I know for a fact that this route does get good color. I look forward for more fall foliage questions… 🙂 I hope this starts to answer a few questions for you.
http://www.inntoinn.com/self_bike.htm
http://bikevt.com/index.aspx
http://www.bikekinetix.com/special_features/bikes-fall-foliage.php