The Northern Trek Continues

On Tuesday, June 9 we headed south for the day in Newport.   We had had cocktails the night before with Rhode Island friends, Bill, Julie and Nan, all of whom pushed a visit to Rough Point, the home of the late Doris Duke.

The weather on Tuesday was dreadful so the idea of being inside was very appealing.   And Duke's home is truly appealing.  It's not as nouveau-riche as the Vanderbilt mansions in their gaudiness.   Toward the end of Duke's life it was her home for many months of the year till she died in the 1990s.   It has a 270º view of the Atlantic Ocean from the point, impressive with its own private way to the beach, under a bridge below the public Cliff Walk to the water where she swam daily privately amidst the rocks.

Duke collected stray dogs, but toward the end of her life came back from a visit to the Middle East to purchase a Boeing 737 that came with with a collection of three live camels (who outlived her).  Camel models are now visible throughout Newport, probably as a note of thanks for all the work Duke did to restore the city's colonial past. There are camel topiaries on her Rough Point house grounds. She bought many of the nearly derelict decaying 17th and 18th century homes for the Historical Society through her own foundation and restored them.  They are now rented.  

The house itself contains a grand collection of art from Rembrandt to Van Dyck, and a large collection of Louis XVI furniture.   A visit to mother-of-pearl bedroom reveals an inner shine-loving character!

We lunched at Annie's, a breakfast and lunch place with a very rich, full clam chowder, in the buildings of the Tennis Hall of Fame.  Then we walked Thames Street in the sometime fog down restored side streets and finally returned to Bristol for dinner at Le Central on Hope Street.

Le Central is a favorite of our host, and ours.  We go there on our visits for fine steak-frites or good French fish.   Ben had sea bass, Elaine and John at steak-frites.  John began with local asparagus done with onions and parmesan, whileElaine and Ben had soupe de poisson, made with a lovely lobster broth.  A good Hautes Côtes de Beaune red completed an excellent meal.

Bristol is in the midst of painting the Hope Street traffic stripe red, white and blue for its annual grand Fourth of July parade.  The trucks and the work limit street movement after 9 PM as the stripes are repaired.

Wednesday, June 10.  It was a magnificent day for travel.  We decided to spend the day on Block Island, about 18 miles off the coast, reached by ferry from Point Judith.   It's about an hour from Bristol over three Narragansett Bay bridges to get to Point Judith and then an hour on a ferry.   The island is worth the visit.

After the exquisite cappuccino at Persephone's, a three-day old business making a superb coffee and very good frittata, we rented bicycles for the afternoon and took off to the old South Lighthouse.  It's two miles up, and up, and up to the top of the cliffs overlooking the Atlantic to this old 19th century operating lighthouse.  It's been moved from its original site because of erosion of the cliffs, last time 22 years ago.  Nearby are 160 steps down the cliffs to the beach.  There was a grand view from the top.  We don't know about the bottom.

We continued our bike ride through the countryside of this island, where half of the land is in a conservancy.  Back to the harbor, mango-lemon ice and a seat in the sun before the trip back to the mainland.

On land, dinner was a collection of Rhode Island style dishes at George's in Galilee.   We ate outside as the sun began to set, beginning with steamers (small clams steamed in broth with drawn butter) and continued on to snail salad (that's the Rhode Island name--it's really conch salad, but with local sea creatures).  It's mixture of chopped conch with chopped onions, celery and spices in a vinaigrette, served over arugula.  Ben had, and John tasted, a Portuguese style monkfish with chorizo, mixed rices and steamed zucchini as a main.   John splurged on a mango cocktail, like a frozen daiquiri.  

Then in the car and home across the three bridges as the day darkened to Bristol.  The lighted bridges are very impressive between the mainland and Jamestown, Jamestown and Newport, and the old Mt. Hope Bridge between Portsmouth and Bristol.   Narragansett Bay is magnificent.