New England Dopers - input needed! My wife and I only have about a day to tour an area. While we considered Mystic, CT area, ideally I am imaging a circuit car tour around Naragansett Bay, RI. On Apple’s Map App, it looks like it can be driven in 2 hrs non-stop. Sounds reasonable, so there’s time to stop and see lighthouses and such items of interest.
Is such a tour by car feasible, or am I not going to see much of the beauty of this Bay? Your recommendations (Do’s / Don’ts / Musts) for scenic views, lighthouses, etc. Greatly appreciated to get the most bang for my buck.
P.S. We don’t eat seafood. I know, sacrilegious, right? So, please skip any restaurant recommendations.
I reckon you’d be much better off taking a boat tour. There is a fast ferry Rhode Island Fast Ferry that does tours. You will see lots of lighthouses and islands.
My experience is that most of the lighthouses are best seen from the water. Many you cannot even get near by car, or you need to know a spot from which you can see them.
I live at the head of Mt Hope Bay, one of the northern offshoots of Narragansett Bay.
There isn’t much of a good way to see the Bay by car. The major roads that surround the Bay are all inland (Rte 1, Rte 138, Rte 114). You could do the road trip and hit the three major bridges, but I don’t think they’re worth the drive time.
I’d second the motion for the boat ride. Do the fast ferry from Newport to Providence and back. It’s a decent view of the East Passage and the Providence River, which is kind of the main north/south route through the Bay. The West Passage and Sakonnet River are the other north/south portions, but I don’t know of any sightseeing in either.
There’s a helicopter tour guy in Newport, that might give you a good view of the south end of the Bay.
I mean, it was more of just an axiomatic statement of essential truth. You can just say that you were just structuring a new fundamental paradigm of sea-going geometry.
Oddly enough, on Cape Cod, when they were no longer being used, they moved the historical Three Sisters lighthouses inland, and made a park to display them in that is otherwise surrounded by tall woods and therefore probably would not be viewed very well from the ocean.
I trust that your babblespeak bingo card is completely filled, then. Hopefully you’ve been building a consensus around your silo where you can compile your core competencies and store low-hanging fruit while focusing on critical competencies and leveraging synergies.
I second this. It’s also neat to tour one of the historic Newport mansions. Newport is a fun, walkable town with a lot of great restaurants of all types of cuisine.
You can also drive around the southern tip of Aquidneck Island to see some nice views of the ocean. As has been mentioned, you won’t really see much trying to drive all around Narragansett Bay. And if you want to see lighthouses, you should take a boat tour.
My credentials: I lived in Rhode Island for seven years while stationed at Naval Station Newport. I even swam the two miles across Narragansett Bay (twice!) for the annual Save the Bay swim. (The view wasn’t great.) More recently, I went on an ocean fishing trip out of Point Judith, RI just last week.
@robby glad to hear my limited experience seconded by someone who’s lived there! I’ve visited there 4 times, once just a day trip, other times at campsites and hotels, and the Cliff Walk has always been a highlight. I remember it better than our sunset boat cruise around Narragansett Bay, which I don’t remember much, just that we didn’t see that much and it was disappointing.
