Haven’t been anywhere in awhile because we’re packing up, and preparing to move back to New Hampshire at the end of the month.  We’ve gotten so far in the packing, though, that it is hard to stay with home with so little to work with. Luckily for us, we have a year-long membership to the Preservation Society of Newport, Rhode Island, and it’s only a two hours drive away. Having seen all the mansions on previous trips, we decided to only visit two that we really liked, The Elms and The Breakers.

Readers will know that I’ve posted pictures of both these palatial buildings in previous posts, hence only a couple of shots here to prove we were actually there. The highlight of this trip was our walk down Thames Street by the port. Downtown Newport is a museum of restored colonial architecture. In fact the Newport Restoration Foundation has restored over 78 properties throughout the city. Each restored property has a placard giving the name of the house and the year it was built. Many are brightly painted and line narrow one way streets.

Thames Street fits right into these restored neighborhoods with niche shops, pubs and restaurants.  We found a great Thai restaurant for lunch that served the best Pad Thai we’d ever had.  After lunch we continued our walk down the street and discovered and antique mall in the old armory. The armory looked like a miniature castle with its twin turrets.

On our way home we stopped at Ikea in Stoughton, MA to pick up a rug for our new apartment. Our adventure wasn’t long, but enough to get us away from packing.

“Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.” – Helen Keller