Searching for spring?

By early April, I sure am – and it’s usually nowhere to be found here in Maine. This time of year I want – no, I need – to see greenery, feel the warmth of the sun on my face, stretch my legs on long walks by the shore and see splashes of color.

Despite what the calendar says, there’s not much spring to be found in Maine.

So each year, my family travels south to Cape Cod to find spring during the April school vacation week.

The phrase “Cape Cod” might conjure up images of July and August, ice cream cones and crowds, but here’s a secret – the Cape is glorious in mid-April, with almost all of the attractions offered in summer but without the crowds and traffic.

Sure, you won’t be swimming (although one year, when the temperature topped 80 on Patriot’s Day, we took a brief dip in the ocean), but the Cape has everything that spring should offer.

The sun is high enough in the sky to give your face a healthy glow, or even a sunburn, especially as it dances off a sparkling blue ocean and dazzlingly white sands. The grass is green, tree leaves are taking shape, and the daffodils and forsythia catch the eye at every turn. And there’s plenty of room to roam to soak it all in, with long walks on the beach and strolls through scenic New England villages to cheer the mind and refresh the soul.

Some motels have not yet opened in April, but there are ample cottage rental opportunities at half the price that a week in July commands.

The snow is gone – though last year, just barely, as the Cape recorded more snow than Maine did. Summer residents have not arrived, but the locals are out and about, sprucing up their yards and businesses, and most stores and restaurants are open.

Though the Cape is close to population centers such as Boston and Providence, its towns are, in the off season, about the size of rural communities in Maine, with several in the 3,000 to 4,000 range.

While everyone has his or her own definition of Cape Cod, for us, it’s the outer, or lower Cape area. The Cape has been likened to an arm bent at the elbow, like Popeye showing off his biceps. The outer Cape includes the elbow, the forearm and the fist.

The main attraction for us is the miles of white sand beaches, forever protected as part of the National Seashore. It begins in Eastham, just above the elbow of the Cape. Nowhere on the outer Cape are you more than a few miles from salt water, with the warm and shallow Cape Cod Bay on the west nearly as beautiful as the ocean beaches, though a bit less accessible.

The crook of the arm above the elbow includes the hub town of Orleans, with a lively business district and a large Stop & Shop grocery store. Orleans stretches from the ocean beach at Nauset, where Samuel de Champlain first saw the shining sands and the Nauset Indian settlements, to Rock Harbor on the bay, where a charter fishing fleet shelters, and where locals come in the evening to take in spectacular sunsets.

Farther south on the point of the elbow is the tony, Camden-like Chatham, perched on some of the whitest sands you’ll see in New England. There’s a parking strip near the lighthouse that offers views of the harbor, which is remade with each big storm. At times, because of the white sand, the water has that turquoise color you’d expect to see in the Caribbean.

On the bay side of the elbow, a bit to the west, are the quiet, staid old New England villages of Brewster and Dennis.

The forearm, where the Cape narrows, includes Eastham, Wellfleet and Truro. Eastham’s bay side was probably a summer cottage haven in the 1950s and 1960s, but most of those have been converted to year-round homes. (By the way, real estate prices on the Cape are beyond insane – a two-bedroom, one-bath ranch in Eastham might fetch $550,000.)

But even with all the housing market pressure, we’ve been able to find a seasonal cottage nestled in the dunes to rent in April.

Wellfleet’s village center is tucked into the bay side and

has a gritty authenticity to it.

Truro has two tiny village centers on the bay side and miles and miles of ocean beach – part of the National Seashore – on the east. The dunes in Truro are magnificent, like 70-foot-high rolling ocean swells.

Finally, at the tip of the Cape, protected on the underside of the wrist, is Provincetown. Originally a Portuguese fishing village, it became an artist colony in the 1920s, and was home to playwright Eugene O’Neill for a time. Today, it is a gay haven, with galleries, boutiques and the occasional storefront you might want to keep young children from seeing.

Tom Groening can be reached at groening @midcoast.com.

What to do

. Pack a lunch and drive to one of the half-dozen beach parking lots in Eastham, Wellfleet or Orleans – some are part of the National Seashore, such as Marconi and Coast Guard, and others run by the towns, such as Nauset, Lecount Hollow and Cahoon Hollow. There’s no parking fee in April and no shortage of spaces.

Because each beach has its own character, the ocean hike can be repeated on another day. Coast Guard Beach leads to a point where the ocean meets Nauset Marsh in a dramatic inlet. Marconi Beach is where the dunes begin, and grow from 30 feet to 70 feet high, as you walk north and east.

. Many hikes on the Cape take an hour or less. A cool or cloudy day is ideal for exploring the trails that wind through meadows and salt marshes. Two good books are “Best Easy Day Hikes Cape Cod” by Cheryl Johnson Huban, and “Walks & Rambles on Cape Cod and the Islands: A Naturalist’s Hiking Guide” by Ned Friary and Glenda Bendure. Both are available on Amazon for about $10 each. A good Web site operated by the volunteer Cape Cod Trails Conference, www.cctrails.org, lists plenty of options. The Fort Hill area, in Eastham just off Route 6, features views over Nauset Harbor, and several easy-to-walk trails.

. Because the Cape is flat, bicycling is a breeze. The old railroad bed has been converted into a wide, paved bike path, and it provides a pleasant ride. But in recent years, we’ve opted for other rides, since much of the path is far from the bay and ocean views we love. Instead, we bicycle through the neighborhood in which we rent, in Eastham. Or, we haul the bikes to our favorite neighborhoods in Brewster and Dennis, park at a post office or church, and leisurely tour, assessing the relative aesthetic merits of this 200-year-old, cedar-shingled saltbox or that 150-year-old, weather-beaten Cape Cod. I can’t overstate how much the Cape’s architectural landscape contributes to my visual feast. There’s just something so pretty about an old Cape Cod or saltbox, its cedar shingles weathered to silver, a huge center chimney accenting the roof with its deep-red bricks. Chatham, Brewster and the Sesuit Harbor area of Dennis offer some of the finer examples.

. Make a day trip to Provincetown. We like to park at the eastern edge of town and walk in along the beach – if the tide is out – then cut up to the main street through town. On the way out of town, we might park and walk the rock breakwater that crosses a salt pond, or explore the Provincelands part of the National Seashore.

. A visit to Chatham is worth at least a half-day. We walk the curvy sand beach for a couple of hours, then drive to the village and walk through town, window shopping at the galleries. There are plenty of enticing restaurants for lunch or dinner.

. To get charged up for our annual pilgrimage, I often read about the Cape during the winter. Henry David Thoreau enjoyed his own rambles through Cape Cod villages and across its beaches in three trips in the 1850s, resulting in his fine book “Cape Cod.” Henry Beston’s “The Outermost House” chronicles the author’s year in a small cottage – more like a hut – on what is now the Coast Guard Beach. Both writers were naturalists, but added their own poetic perspective to the same sea, sand, bird and plant life that remain for you to see.

On the Web:

www.weneedavacation.com

www.vrbo.com

www.10kvacationrentals.com

www.cyberrentals.com

www.vacationrental.com

www.a1vacations.com

Shingle-style houses and other fine architectural specimens abound in Chatham.

Daffodils in bloom in Brewster.