Newport

Rhode Island has the coolest license plate of any state. Hands down. It’s a wave. Simple, yet elegant. Timeless.

Yet it wasn’t the incredible license plates that brought me to the fine (yet often misunderstood) state of Rhode Island. It was a romantic stroll along the Cliffwalk, a path in Newport that goes along the ocean and passes by several of the famous Newport Mansions.

The Newport Mansions were built by the uber-rich New York tycoons as summer homes. Several of the mansions offer tours and are open to the public, although they are still owned by the families. You can rent them out for weddings and other events. I’m almost positive that multiple movies have been filmed there. They decorate them to the teeth during Christmas and had a symphony concert there on Valentines Day.

I’ve wanted to go to Newport since I first heard about it shortly after moving to Boston and I finally did! My girlfriend was in town and we wanted to do something exciting on Saturday afternoon. Instead of going to a museum or one of the local historical sites, for some reason Newport popped into my mind. Probably because a trip there is cool for several reasons:

1)      It feels like a road trip

2)      It’s in another state

3)      It’s in Rhode Island (and neither of us had been to RI)

4)      It’s historic

5)      It’s beautiful

6)      There are beaches

7)      There are mansions

8)      The town is very quaint and well-maintained

We hopped in the car and spontaneously headed down to Newport. Because we hadn’t planned, when we arrived the mansion tours had already ended for the day. But we didn’t really care. The guy behind the counter at Pizza Hut claimed to live at the Breakers (one of the more famous mansions). It turns out he’s one of the guides there and is semi-obsessed with the mansion. But he doesn’t live there.

Side note: we had one of Pizza Hut’s specialty pizzas (chicken and bacon?) and it was incredible! It seems like Pizza Hut is really working on improving their image. When I was in Maine I saw a Pizza Hut Bistro that was a classier sit-down restaurant. Interesting.

With the mansions closed, we headed instead to the Cliffwalk (recommended by our friend behind the counter). It was so soothing to watch the waves crashing along the cliffs. There was only one small section of beach: the rest was cliff or rocks. The rocky sections reminded me a lot of Lake Michigan right by Northwestern.

One of us had trouble getting onto a tree branch for a picture. The other one didn’t.

We took a picture for a nice family of bicycle tourists, and they returned the favor.

Trip Rating: A+