When driving for the first time to Provincetown along Route 6, you come to a headland in North Truro which affords a breathtaking panoramic view of Pilgrim Lake on your right, the dunes, Provincetown in the distance, and a strip of identical cottages close by on your left on Beach Point –– a favorite motif for local photographers and painters. Shown above are the White Village Cottages, which date from just after World War II.

Days's Cottages, with green shutters, are each named after a flower, and some families have rented the same cottage every summer down through their generations. After the war, the Day's Cottages were built by a Provincetown lumberyard owner in the slack winter season. A drive on Route 6A will give you a close-up view of these simple treasures.

The lake on your right, for many years known as Pilgrim Lake, was once called East Harbor, because it was first a shallow harbor. With the construction of a railroad in the late nineteenth century, the outlet of East Harbor was filled in and the barrier beach became the new way into Provincetown.