The 50 stars and 13 stripes of the American flag are an unmistakable symbol representing freedom, readily seen across the continent strung from houses and slapped on the backside of pick-up trucks. One of the first sights you’ll see walking off the pier into Provincetown is a kaleidoscope of colour representing an entirely different kind of pride.
Rainbow flags are ubiquitous in the place locals call P-Town, more so than the red, white and blue of the star-spangled banner. Even the tarseal outside the chamber of commerce has been painted in fabulous multicoloured stripes.
The small coastal village is just a 90-minute ferry ride away from downtown Boston, Massachusetts at the northernmost tip of the Cape Cod peninsula, but it feels a world away from the buzz and bravado of the state capital. The narrow slither of land curves out from the mainland like a fishhook. On a map it looks like a bicep curl or, more suitably, the upside-down arc of a rainbow.