Rhode Island Business Trip Day 3: Newport, RI

The final full day was complete and it was time for dinner, boy was I in for a treat.  I finally got to see someplace in the daylight!!!  The group had decided, on the recommendation of the local analysts to have dinner in Newport, RI at the Red Parrot.  This was 45 minutes away and it was a beautiful drive. 

That is until we were crossing the Newport Bridge.  There was an accident on the bridge.  A Semi had jackknifed across the bridge and it took about an 30 minutes to move it out of the way.  This meant that I was stuck on the bridge, which afforded the perfect, and rare opportunity, to get out of the car, on the bridge (all the cars were stopped) and take pictures of the Narragansett Bay.

You could see all the way to the Atlantic, over to Newport, and up towards Bristol.  There was an amazing house that sat on an island out in the middle of the bay.  It sat on a cliff and and took up the entire island.  It was one of those houses that would be in some type of mystery book.  Click here to see what I am talking about.

When we finally got to the Red Parrot Restaurant, I was hungry.  But I was already impressed with Newport!  It is such a beautiful town.  Newport was founded in 1639 and was the capital for the colony until Rhode Island became a state and it was moved to Providence.

Newport was one of the more important ports in Colonial times and also was known for the pirates that were celebrated by the town people.


Newport is also the location of many of the summer mansions of the the Astor's, the Wideners, and the Vanderbilt's.  JFK and Jackie got married at St. Marie's Church here in Newport.

The food and the Red Parrot was awesome.  I laughed when everyone at the table said that when you are here you have to have the seafood since we have such great seafood in the Bay Area.  That said, I had the Mediterranean Pasta which had shrimp and scallops.  It was SO good.

After dinner, we walked around Newport.  Like I said, it is a beautiful town and is definitely a place I would like to go back and spend more time.  There were a lot of shops, and it did mind me of Monterrey with an upper crust East Coast feel.

I came across this yacht in the marina.  It typifies what Newport felt like, old meets new. This is a very historic place with buildings reaching back to the 1600's to present.

The following day, we had a brief meeting and then flew back that afternoon.  I had a layover in Detroit that ended up being a couple of hours longer than plan.  They have a very interesting train system in the terminal that made me feel like I stepped into the 22nd century. 

Overall, it was a very good trip.  I wish it wasn't for business and wish I could have spent it with my family.  But now I know where I can take them in the future.