Venture Out to Hingham, Plymouth and Hyannis [VIDEO]

Below find destinations 15, 30 and 60 minutes away.

Hingham

One of the finest shopping areas of the South Shore sits right off Route 3 in Hingham at the Derby Street Shoppes.

Made up of  78 retailers, including clothing stores, delicious restaurants and boutique shops,  visitors like  Derby Street  because it accommodates shoppers of all ages.

“They have ice cream, they have cake, they have all kind of great shops to go into,” said Jackie Dowding, a Hingham mother.  “The kids get to walk around and they have some of their favorite places to go. We just love it.”

Besides the variety of stores on Derby Street, tourists can visit the "Serenity Garden" located behind Barnes & Noble, and the “Hidden Pond” behind Burton’s Grille for a quiet place to take a break from your shopping or have a picnic.  The Derby Street Shoppes also has a bocce court in the summer months and a skating area during the winter.

Plymouth

What does Plymouth Rock really mean?

The most common response from people who view Plymouth Rock for the first time - "That's it?"

It's not an impressive rock. So why do people travel to see it? Most don't know why. Once nothing more than the foundation for a wharf, it serves as a reminder of the foundation of the country.

Good arguments exist that at least some of the Mayflower voyagers stepped onto this piece of rock on their way to the first deadly winter in Plymouth. It occupied a spot on the coastline that, at high tide, might make a good place to step from a boat to the shore. At low tide, anyone would choose the adjacent beach.

But, no one considered it. The first of the passengers to come ashore in Plymouth did so in what is now North Plymouth. An expeditionary group crossed Cape Cod Bay in a small boat and clearly described where they set foot on land, three miles north of Plymouth Rock. They sailed and rowed back to end of Cape Cod and reported they had found a good spot.

The Mayflower sailed across the bay and the same small boat, ferried the healthiest passengers to shore, Dec. 21, 1620, the middle of a harsh New England winter. Did ice cover the rock? Did icy water make it a more attractive spot to step on?

We have only the testimony of Elder Faunce. When, in the 18th century, a group of shippers proposed building a new wharf, Faunce objected. Sympathetic townspeople brought the old man to the waterfront in a chair. He pointed to the rock and declared his grandfather told him his ancestors stepped onto the shore via the rock.

The town had such affection for the artifact: It built the wharf with the rock as a part of the foundation. The rock has travelled about town, adopted by a variety of causes. Revolutionaries wrested it from the wharf, leaving half of it behind, and leaned it on a tree in Town Square. The Pilgrim Hall Museum claimed it, put it inside a portico too small for its already reduced girth, chipped away and began to make it a national monument. In 1921, for the 400th anniversary of the landing, a year late, the town reunited the top portion to the bottom part where it sits today under a grand granite canopy.

Cities and towns across the country have pieces of Plymouth Rock, some as large as the piece that sits under the grand canopy in Plymouth.

The rock means nothing. It's a granite composite stone dropped here by the last ice age that has been chipped away at for three centuries.

Wherever they stepped ashore, the Mayflower voyagers did so knowing they had a chance against their bad odds because they had signed the "Mayflower Compact."

The 102 passengers split 50/50, the church members naming the two groups "saints and strangers." The "saints" wanted to separate from the Church of England and have the freedom to establish their own minimalist religion. The "strangers" helped pay for the trip and wanted an opportunity to escape the old world for the promise of the new.

Young William Bradford, with Plimoth Colony Governor John Carver, drafted a brief agreement between the two groups. It declares they will govern themselves in a "bodie politick." That was the first act of democracy in the New World.

Carver would die within weeks. Bradford would succeed him as the longest serving governor of Plimoth Colony, the second colony of what would become the United States.

The original document was lost long ago. The rock, or a piece of it, remains as a reminder.

Hyannis

Hyannis Port is the summer playground for America's royalty, the Kennedy Family.

President John F. Kennedy summered here throughout his life. During his term as president, the Kennedy Compound was known as the summer White House.

The late U.S. Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy spent his last days at the compound before dying of a brain tumor in August 2009. Also, in August 2009, Ted’s sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver died and was buried in the Roman Catholic cemetery in Hyannis Port.

Yet, there were many happy occasions for the Kennedy family, including weddings– Kennedy cousins, Caroline Kennedy, Maria Shriver and Patrick Kennedy were married here – births and family summer
vacations.

While in Hyannis Port, take in the history and the beauty of this quaint Cape Cod town. Tour the many narrow lanes lined with rose covered cottages; see the Rainbow Fleet sailing in Nantucket Sound and experience the many fine shops and restaurants that make Hyannis Port unique.