The Pilgrims first stepped ashore not at Plymouth Rock but in what is now Provincetown, Mass., at the sandy tip of Cape Cod. But after just five weeks, they found the location inhospitable and pulled up anchor.
It was perhaps the last time anyone found Provincetown unwelcoming.
The town now has about 3,300 full-time residents, including many L.G.B.T.Q. people drawn by art, theater and acceptance in the midst of dunes, beaches and forests.
The actor Murray Bartlett and his partner, after years of visiting, have been among them since 2018. “Once we spent time there and realized it wasn’t just a place to visit in the summer, that it just is this kind of wonderland, we were hooked,” Mr. Bartlett said in a video interview.
Living in a tourist town means experiencing two vastly different seasons: the summer, when Provincetown feels like the center of the gay universe and crowds spill out of bars and drag shows along Commercial Street, and the quiet winter months, when Mr. Bartlett says “it’s empty and it’s magnificent.” But even in the thick of the summer, you can find a place to have mostly to yourself, Mr. Bartlett said. “You just need to know where to go.”
In any season, Mr. Bartlett said, he loves walking his 6-year-old mixed-breed dog — still full of “puppy energy” — on the beach or in the woods. And on summer Fridays, the local galleries stay open late for a gallery walk, a reminder that the area around Provincetown was an artists’ colony that attracted the likes of Edward Hopper, Jackson Pollock and Helen Frankenthaler.
Cape Cod is also known for its oysters, a delicacy Mr. Bartlett says he’s embraced — perhaps too much, he joked — since moving there. “The oysters up there are to die for,” Mr. Bartlett said. “I was late to the oyster game,” he added with a laugh, “so I’m just trying to make up time, I guess.”
Here are Mr. Bartlett’s five favorite places in and around Provincetown.
This Italian restaurant, like so many local characters, splits its time between two places, spending the winter in Los Angeles and the summer in Provincetown. The owner, Siobhán Carew, is “one of the reasons why the restaurant is so amazing,” Mr. Bartlett said. The menu changes every year, Mr. Bartlett said, but his favorites have included an octopus appetizer and a short rib dish. The restaurant, which occupies an old house on the bay, has “this old P-Town feel,” Mr. Bartlett said. When you’re sitting out on the deck, listening to the water lapping and the moon is out, “it’s kind of magical Provincetown vibes.” Sal’s, which also rents out waterfront cabins for weekly stays, is set to reopen on June 27.
This pocket-size grocery store in adjacent North Truro, a few easily bikeable miles from downtown Provincetown, offers an escape from the tourist scrum. Run by the chef Liam Luttrell Rowland, the Salty Market is “a local hangout,” Mr. Bartlett said, evoking what he called a “general store, gourmet store fantasy” with its wooden floors and bay windows. The breakfast sandwiches on homemade biscuits are “epic,” Mr. Bartlett said.
“I was afraid of leaving New York and not having access to amazing films,” Mr. Bartlett said, but it turns out he need not have worried.
The nonprofit Waters Edge Cinema, in the downtown Whalers Wharf shopping complex, regularly plays a mix of mainstream and indie films. “We’re so lucky we have this great cinema,” he said, noting that there are actually two theaters in the complex, and a new bar section was being added.
But the Waters Edge’s big moment comes every June with the Provincetown Film Festival, which Mr. Bartlett called one of his favorite film festivals. “It’s small enough that it feels very intimate,” he said. “You get to meet a lot of the people involved in the festival. It feels like a real community event.”
The National Park Service manages this 7.3-mile network of paved paths winding through forest, dunes and bogs to the beaches northwest of town. “It’s great exercise, because it’s kind of hilly,” said Mr. Bartlett, who used to ride the path daily. “You rarely see the road,” he said, adding, “You can really kind of lose yourself in it.”
Cape Cod National Seashore encompasses 40 miles of Outer Cape coastline, but Mr. Bartlett said you don’t have to go far from Provincetown to visit one of the best beaches: Race Point, which Mr. Bartlett called “one of the most amazing places to see the sunset,” and if you’re lucky, he said, you might also see whales or seals.
“It’s gorgeous,” Mr. Bartlett said. “And you can ride out there. You don’t even need a car.”
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