Rhode Trip: Narragansett, Newport, & Providence

We are pretty excited about spending some time in New England this year. At this point, it’s probably the part of the US that we are the least familiar and we’re ready to be overloaded with the charm, history, and seafood! We started in Rhode Island, with Fisherman’s Memorial State Park in Narragansett being home base for 2 weeks.

Narragansett is on the southern coast of the mainland, known for its sandy beaches, but mid-May was not exactly beach weather in Rhode Island. We did enjoy the coastal scenery at Hazard Rock as well as the short oceanfront trail to the Black Point ruins.

The actual Fisherman’s Memorial and lighthouse at Point Judith were worth checking out.

We also went to see the fishing boats at the Port of Galilee. This is where you can take a ferry to Block Island, which will be our top priority if we ever make it back to RI.

We had a feast – the freshest oysters grown in the pond right outside the window, stuffies (stuffed clams), and clams casino at Matunuck Oyster Bar. And I made Rhode Island style (clear broth) clam chowder and pizza sticks (no mozzarella).

The name of Rhode Island makes sense when you zoom in on a map and see all the islands in Narragansett Bay. The largest is Aquidneck, where the town of Newport is located.

We spent a couple weekend days in Newport. We started with the famous cliff walk, a ~7 miles round trip walk with the ocean on one side and both modern and Gilded Age mansions on the other.

On our second day in Newport we planned to go to the Oyster and Chowder Festival but it was so crowded that we got chowder from the Black Pearl’s takeout window and then took an impromtu sail on a schooner with Sightsailing. Newport’s nickname is the sailing capital of the world and used to hold the America’s Cup.

On our last weekend day we went to Providence. The Rhode Island School of Design has an amazing art museum that is free on Sundays so we did that followed by PVDougnuts.

The surrounding neighborhood of College Hill was beautiful, both the architecture and blooming flowers.

We finished the day with a walk along the Providence River.

Next up, we finally make it to Maine!