We left Newport and headed towards our next destination, New Heaven in Connecticut. We decided that rather than jumping on the interstate straight away, we would take the scenic route. Our first stop was a little island just outside Newport called Jamestown.
Unfortunately, it was a bit of a dreary day but we were determined to see the beach so we followed the signs and ended up on a road that run alongside the coastline. On one side of the road was these huge summer houses with towers and balconies overlooking the beach. We parked up, crossed the road and headed down a short footpath to the beach. On a sunny day, this place must be stunning and probably heaving with people.
We didn't stay for long as it was a bit chilly. We jumped back in Fin and continued driving towards the very tip of island where we reached Beavertail State Park.
The weather did not do this park justice, on a clear day, the views are supposed to be some of the most beautiful in New England. It was free to enter the park and even though it was cold and cloudy, there were a lot people here.
One of the attractions in the park is Beavertail Light House. We were a little 'Light Housed Out' by this point and with the view being so poor due to the weather, we decided to skip the tour. Instead we headed down onto the rocks where people were fishing, taking pictures and just chilling out. We sat for a while watching a fisherman who had caught a fish, once he had finally reeled the fish in, he measured it and realising it was too small, threw it back into the water. Only, his throw was terrible and instead of hitting the water, the fish hit a rock and bounced into a rock pool. Lee quickly pulled me back to the car as I started to get upset about the poor fish, who whilst still alive, was now swimming on his side. I like to think that he survived and if not, maybe he helped another animal survive. I just hope that fisherman learns to throw a bit better in future.
The original location of the light house
There was a little museum next to the light house which was free to enter. The museum explained the history and the science behind the lamps and lenses in light houses. I found it a little boring but Lee loved it. As well as infographics, there were a couple of touch screen computers you could play around with to learn more about how the light is projected so far with the different lenses and how the lenses have changed over time to be safer and more energy efficient. I still can't believe that whale oil and kerosene were some of the original fuels used, it must have been a stinky and dangerous profession back in those days.
We headed off the island and picked up the scenic Route 1A to the town of Narragansett.
We parked up at Narragansett Bay Beach where we headed out of the car to do some exploring. This is a small tourist town which doubles its population in the summer months. We had arrived in October and in one of the parks was a scare crow display. Around the edge of the park were around 30 different scare crows, some scary, some real people and some representing the people who had made them (for example, a doctor for the local hospital and a chef from a restaurant).
Opposite the park was the bay and whilst there wasn't anyone sunbathing on the beach, there were a lot of people surfing. We watched for a while, eventually getting bored as most seemed to just be paddling over the waves rather than riding them. Either it's a lot of fun sitting out in the cold water or you have to wait a long time to get that perfect wave to ride.
We picked up Route 1 and headed through Charlestown, which had we had more time would have been another cool little town to stop in, to our next stop at Misquamicut Beach.
Misquamicut State Beach is a public recreation area in the town of Westerly and during the summer months, is packed full of beach goers and tourists. When we visited, there were only a couple of walkers and shell combers around. The beach is a 3 mile long barrier island (a sand island) with tourist attractions, hotels and various tat shops lining one side of the street and with access to the beach on the other. Going to this beach is not free in the height of summer but it was free to us in the off season, another bonus of going in October!
We were now nearly at the Connecticut border so headed back in-land towards the freeway.
Halloween ghosts
Beautiful fall colours
We arrived in New Heaven during the early afternoon and quickly checked into our hotel before heading out for a walk around Yale University.
Yale was founded in 1701, making it one of the oldest universities in America. It had the old buildings and the grandeur of Harvard but being a campus with students living, working and learning all within what felt like dedicated streets of university only buildings, it felt more like the type of university community I was used to. It was also nice seeing actual students going between lectures, studying on the laws and even protesting around a fountain whereas at Harvard, we saw more tourists than real students on campus.
Unlike Harvard, we didn't feel like there were any buildings we could just walk into as a visitor so we only saw the outside of the university. I wasn't that bothered by this as I expect the students don't want strangers walking in and out of their buildings, watching them in classes and getting in their way when they're trying to catch up with friends. We were treated to an organ practice which we could hear from outside one of the churches. When we eventually decided we'd drawn enough attention to ourselves standing on the street listening, we headed off to get some food.
There seemed to be lots of options for food in New Haven and being a student town, it was reasonably priced. We found a place called BAR not far from our hotel which did brick oven pizzas and in-house brewed beer.
The pizzas were in three sizes - small, medium and large. We were both hungry but wanted different ingredients on our pizzas, Lee was going to a spicy chicken pizzas and I wanted an anchovy and prawn pizza. We asked the bar man what size we should get, his response was "if you're hungry, go for a medium, if not, go for a small". We decided we were both hungry and any left over pizza would be polished off the next day so we went for two medium pizzas. When the pizzas arrived, they were both huge, we could have shared one of them and still had loads to take home with us! Most of the people in the bar started laughing about how much pizza we had and the lady next to me even said "we made the same mistake our first time". We ate as much as we could but still ended up boxing over half of the food.
We enjoyed our time in New Haven but really the only attraction is the university which you can walk around in half a day. It was ideally located to break up our journey but I don't think it is somewhere we would come back to, not unless we had a reason to visit the university again.
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