Road Trip round New England in the Spring, not the Fall! Day 11 - Mystic to Cape Cod via Newport, RI

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Day 11 – Mystic to Cape Cod via Newport, Rhode Island

(Apologies for delay – have had a sick computer!)

Good night’s sleep and lovely free breakfast in the hotel. We decided to give the Mystic Seaport a miss as it would take a few hours and we weren’t really that bothered about it. We set off on Route 1 east towards Newport, Rhode Island, filling up with petrol first.

This was Memorial Weekend and the traffic was certainly picking up along the way, although it was only Thursday. We passed over a series of bridges with good views.

Pretty soon we arrived at Newport and headed first for Fort Adams, right on the tip of Newport. There was a beautiful ship docked and it appeared it was waiting for some students to board for an adventure!

We had a good look round (but for some reason no photos!) and finished up by having coffee in the nice little café and gift shop.

Heading out we had to stop to let these guys cross the road!

We drove back to the main part of Newport and parked up. We were lucky to find a space on the street. We didn’t really head anywhere, just wandered where we fancied. We loved the roads, a lot of which had cobbles, and buildings. It reminded us a bit of Boston. There was a Sephora and I was pleased to find DD’s eyeliner right by the door!

Back on the road and up through Portsmouth (another one! They get everywhere!) We had some lunch at a services on the I95 after getting a bit lost finding it and driving in circles for 10 minutes. This was a 99 restaurant – ok but nothing to write home about.
There was a big queue for the bridge onto Cape Cod (but not as big as the one we had to get off) and eventually we rocked up in Hyannis – our home for the next 4 nights.

I’d booked the Hyannis Holiday Motel for both price (not a bank breaker) and location right across from the harbour and had booked a harbour view.

Checkin was easy and friendly and they also gave us some coupons for money off at certain restaurants in town.

We were in room 1 – a ground floor room with a wonderful view. The room was just huge with massive bed, table and chairs, fridge, microwave, terrace etc. Really lovely and right across from the busy harbour. We just walked up the slope to our room rather than going round the long way in the end!

The hotel had 2 pools, indoor and outdoor, and free basic breakfast of pastries, coffee, juice etc – enough to get us going for the day.
We settled in and unpacked the packing cubes and hung up other bits. We were visited by this American Robin and he proved to be a regular and friendly visitor.

We went out and explored the Harbour area. We bought our tickets for the ferry to Martha’s Vineyard for Saturday, just to get it done and not have to worry about it on the day. This proved to be a good move as it was incredibly slow service at the ticket windows!

We walked up to Main Street (about 5 minutes) and did a fair distance along it. Quite a few souvenir shops, bars etc and a nice feel to it. Also the John F Kennedy Museum, which we would go to later.

We went back to the hotel for a bit before going over the road to Spanky’s Crab Shack for dinner. Will did really well here as fish makes him ill and he can’t stand the smell either! This was a very fish place with only a few non-fish items on the menu. It was really busy and we sat at the bar with a buzzer for 20 minutes with some beers.

Will was still full up from last night’s pizza overdose really, so opted for the Chicken Tenders appetiser as his entrée. I don’t know if they felt sorry for him or whether he got an actual portion which was an appetiser but there were 12 tenders in all, with dipping sauce! I could never have eaten them and then an entrée too! I had baked stuffed Sole with Lobster sauce and rice with vegetables – delicious!

Too full up for dessert, we left and walked it off. Up to main street and a couple of beers before heading back to our room. Tomorrow we were going to Provincetown.

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