Unhurried Fall Days Ideal Time to Visit Cape Cod’s Chatham Bars Inn
September is Cape Cod’s most sublime month, 30 days of predictably pleasant weather when migrating shorebirds scurrying across the beaches replace the summer crowds. Crisp, golden light falls upon Chatham Lighthouse, and a refreshing Atlantic breeze cools cyclists as they pedal past kettle ponds upon the impressive 35-mile Rail Trail. Far from shuttering for winter, Chatham Bars Inn welcomes the autumn season. Chatham Bars Inn’s amenities and impressive roster of activities make for a perfect gathering place, whether your ensemble includes college classmates, girlfriends, bachelors, or a multigenerational reunion.
Romantic Getaway
Couples adore romantic Chatham. The Cape’s postcard village, composed of 18th century homes, perfectly complements the inn’s private beach, where guests can take off on a sunset sail aboard Stars and Stripes, a 26’ Latitude Tadorne. The romantic getaway extends to accommodations, as couples can tuck into an ocean-view cottage suite settled along the bluff. The inn also offers extraordinary offsite excursions. Explore surrounding villages and Cape Cod National Seashore behind the wheel of a Lexus RC 350 F SPORT, one of three available Lexus models.
The Family Reunion
The custom-designed, 18-person Bar Tender is often the vessel of choice for reunions and multigenerational families. The wooden launch travels beyond Chatham Harbor each morning, weather permitting, to observe resident harbor seals bop about the surf. The resident seals are hardly the only ones frolicking surfside. The Bar Tender departs every hour to provide complimentary shuttles to one of Cape Cod National Seashore’s most isolated outer beaches, a world-renowned stretch of sand that can be accessed only by water.
Back in Chatham, the inn’s private, cabana-lined quarter-mile beach adds to the exclusivity of a family gathering, as well as the safety of small members of the party who are easier to monitor with fewer bathers about. Speaking of kids, children’s programs—customized for kids aged four through 18—run into mid-September. Chatham Harbor also provides a great “classroom” for the inn’s sailing program, available to children seven years and older.
Round up the clan at day’s end for a clambake at the Beach House or a private dinner in the Harbor View Room, two of numerous dining options that include a romantic dinner at the Veranda, fine dining at STARS, or a more casual menu inside the Sacred Cod.
The Adventurer
Naturalists also lead regular nature walks through Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge on Morris Island, among the most famous bird sanctuaries in North America.
There’s no better time to visit Monomoy than during fall migration, when wood-dwelling Accipiter hawks dart through the forest, hundreds of shorebirds pause to replenish themselves on the beach, and a kaleidoscope of songbirds feed anxiously—see Accipiter hawks—within the barrier forest before migrating to Central and South America for the winter.
Lovers of Luxury
From luxury sports cars to nautical tenders, Chatham Bars Inn conveys guests on an expansive Cape Cod journey. Sail across the Chatham Bar into the open Atlantic, or drift beside the Cape’s famous dunes and into the sunset. Or sail to Nantucket, where you can spend the night and sail back the next morning. The Champagne Bay Cruise traverses the aptly named Pleasant Bay, where guests have no cares beyond the bubbly or, for younger family members, a soft drink and a snack. The youthful buccaneers can find their own bounty, quite literally, during the Pirate Cruise, by following the treasure map.
Girlfriends may wish to jump inside the Lexus GX 460 SUV and take off on the one-hour drive to Provincetown for boutique shopping and a seaside lunch—that is, if they can bear to part with the spa at Chatham Bars Inn. Here, treatment cabanas surround the Japanese Zen-garden-like cranes standing in the tall sea grass. Inside the clapboard-sided spa, oversized treatment rooms each include a hydrotherapy tub. Should wellness be the focus of your getaway, 12 self-contained adult spa suites will pamper you with an en suite private sauna, steam shower, oversized hydrotherapy tub, and fireplace.
Autumn treatments reflect the changing seasons, when special attention is paid to healing and rejuvenation. The Fall Into Grace seasonal therapy begins with body brushing followed by a clay mask application while you’re nestled within a warm wrap. Release tension within the Healing Seaweed Body Wrap, featuring Patagonian white algae, or indulge in the 150-minute Sacred Time at Sea, which begins with the Spa’s Signature Body Polish. From Cranberry Crush to a Sea Dew Hot Stone Pedicure, the inn’s therapists transport guests into the gentle pace of rolling waves.
Of course, contemporary spa treatments are hardly reserved for women these days, as any man will attest after receiving the Sea Captains Manicure, specifically designed for dry, well-worked hands. Toss in a Sea Captains Pedicure as well. Men can enjoy specially designed facials and scrubs, as well as the 30-minute De-stress by the Sea massage, ideal for a newbie who wants to feel the benefits of bodywork without too much of a time commitment.
Massage aids enhance flexibility—just ask a PGA golfer. Still a skeptic? Schedule a 30-minute deep tissue massage before teeing it up at the Chatham Seaside Links, adjacent to the inn, as part of your buddy or bachelor weekend. More serious duffers can head to Dennis Pines, one of the Cape’s best public 18s, or the Bass River Golf Club, designed by the legendary Donald Ross.
Escape from the Man Cave
Guys’ getaways continue to trend upward. Fortunately, Chatham Bars Inn has long encouraged the active lifestyle, whether organizing tennis tournaments on the state-of-the-art composite courts, providing kayaks, canoes, and stand-up paddleboards for human-powered Chatham Harbor expeditions, or renting a variety of watercraft for sport fishing or potting lobsters with a local lobsterman. Sea legged and windswept, the boys can repair to the Sacred Cod to celebrate the day’s adventures.
Come September, the coastal beach grass turns golden to match the sunsets. Sunny, warm play days give way to cool romantic nights, opportunities to erect memories that, unlike recently built sand castles, never disappear.