The Newport Report

My boyfriend and I went to Newport, RI this past weekend and stayed at a lovely B & B. We had our own private porch area, homemade chocolate chip cookies delivered to our room each evening, and breakfast feasts served family-style each AM. It was an allover yummy experience.

Itinerary highlights:

10-mile bike ride along Ocean Drive

Don’t be dissuaded by the “10 mile” detail. It’s totally doable, even for someone who RARELY exercises, i.e. my boyfriend.

(Side note: big ups to Justin, who was the perfect yoga student throughout my Teacher Training. He’s now saying things like “I think you could go into Handstand from Crow pose…)

Anyway, Ocean Drive is gorgeous and relatively quiet for a major road, even during a holiday weekend. Biking along the ocean: highly recommended. Rent bikes from Newport Bicycle.

Sailboat outing

Scary. But worth it. The waves were really rocky when we sailed out to sea, and it seemed as if we were going to capsize at any moment… At one point a crewmember asked us to leave our “seats” atop a life vest container, so naturally I assumed we were in a state of emergency (having to shift our weight and all). I shot up and crawled across some people lounging in the middle of the boat. It turned out another passenger had just requested a life jacket for his kid… Whoops! The rest of the ride was enjoyable and educational. We learned about the last working farm in Newport (where Jackie Lee Bouvier spent summers and rode horses), a house once erected (and still functioning) in the middle of Rhode Island's Narragansett Bay, and more… Overall, the Newport nautical experience was a worthwhile adventure.

Ocean Cliff wedding crashing

We spent an afternoon drinking fine wine and eating cheese in Adirondack chairs on the lawn of the Ocean Cliff hotel. Not too shabby. The staff was prepping for a wedding right by our setup, overlooking the Atlantic. We didn’t end up staying for the festivities, but the spot was definitely worth checking out (with or without an invitation).

Destination: Ocean House, Watch Hill, RI

On the recommendation of our B & B owner, we stopped in Watch Hill for lunch before returning to NYC on Monday. Rather than sit in traffic on 95, we sat on the verandah at the Ocean House.

We were told that the Watch Hill community, and the Ocean House in particular, would be very “Tony.” We had no idea what that meant, but we set forth anyway, and googled the term en route:

ton·y

[toh-nee]

adjective, ton·i·er, ton·i·est. Informal .

high-toned; stylish: a tony nightclub.

(dictionary.com)

Allow me to paint a “Tony” picture:

You’re sipping white wine at a table on a verandah, perched above a game of croquet and looking out onto the Atlantic. Everyone around you is dressed to the nines. The food (RI oysters and a warm lobster roll) is delectable. Inside the hotel the ladies room is larger and lovelier than your NYC apartment. So Tony.

A

P.S. Other Labor Day getaways from around the Web:

Portland

Fire Island