Vieux-Montreal

Friday, June 4 - Did a little bit of shopping in Old Montreal at the Bonsecours Market (domed building) before heading out of town. It's an old government building which has been converted to a space with artist galleries, shops and cafes.

And despite several recommendations, the one thing that we failed to do was sample Montreal's famed poutine. For the uninitiated, poutine is French fries with gravy and cheese curds. We hear that it is delicious, but somehow it didn't get to the top of our list of things to do, see and taste in Montreal.... Maybe next time...?

Tuesday, June 2 - The Mount Washington Hotel is amazing. Built from 1900-1902, it is still as grand as it was at the beginning. It was a little rainy and foggy when we arrived in the evening.

This hotel is famous for the "Bretton Woods Conference" in 1944, when delegates from 45 nations met to form the International Monetary Fund. There are several plaques on guest room doors down the hall from our room which showed which delegates stayed in which rooms, including someone from Iceland, one of our favorite countries.

Newport

Thursday, May 27 - You can see why Newport is considered America's first and one of its most favorite resorts. Too bad that we were only there for two hours.

After passing through town, we took the

scenic Ocean Drive on our way to get a quick peek of the famous mansions. We wanted to at least see The Breakers, built by Cornelius Vanderbilt. We didn't have time to take the tour, and you needed a ticket to get on the grounds, but Sandy told the nice guard at the gate our predicament, and he allowed us in in order to go to the gift shop. While we only saw the service rooms in the basement where the store is, we're ready to move in.

Quick tour of Providence

Thursday, May 27 - Before heading out of town, we wanted to do a quick tour of the city. We started off with a late breakfast/early lunch at Tazza, a couple of blocks from the Hotel Providence (photo left). Our server was Sarah, and she recommended a few places for us to go in Maine, including Peaks Island in Portand. Thanks, Sarah! We'll report back.

We took a swing around the Rhode Island Statehouse, and then drove up to College Hill to take a quick look at Brown University. This trip is starting to become a college tour of the Northeast. The architecture in College Hill is really beautiful, so we got out to take a walk down Benefit Street, which according to our guidebook, "has one of the most impressive collections of the colonial and federal style homes in America." Sandy liked the yellow house

Mystic Pizza

Wednesday, May 26 - Yes, we did it. We ate at Mystic Pizza. The ultimate tourist destination in this tourist destination. But, we're tourists, so what the heck. It really is a real place, and was even before the 1988 movie. The pizza and pizza wraps are actually great.

It's a cute little town right on the water, and as we were admiring it's famous drawbridge, there was suddenly a flash rainstorm while the sun was still out. There was a rainbow as the rain let up, which Sandy thought was a great way to start the road trip.

We've decided that the word of the day is "Bascule," which is both the name and type of drawbridge which connects the two sides of Mystic's downtown across the river. Bascule is French for "seesaw."

After dinner, after it cleared up, there was this amazing cloud which was reflecting on the Mystic River.

Lunch at Yale

Wednesday, May 26 -- As we were about to pass by New Haven, we decided that we should make a quick stop to see Yale University, since neither of us had been there before and it was listed as one of the 6 highlights of Connecticut in one of our guide books. It was the state's first university, founded in 1716. As we were sitting on the Green having lunch, I remembered that the two oldest buildings on the campus of my alma mater, Miami University of Ohio (Elliott and Stoddard Halls), were modeled after Connecticut Hall at Yale. Connecticut Hall is also the oldest surviving building in New Haven, built in 1750. Turns out that CT Hall is also modeled after Massachusetts Hall at Harvard. Guess there was a lot of copying going on back then...

I was trying to figure out where the hall was, and realized that we were sitting there looking at it. Of course.

All Aboard!

Wednesday, May 26 - Road Trip 2010 kicked off at Grand Central Terminal at 9am -- not a bad place to start the trip. Took the train to Stamford to rent the car, since it was less than half the price than renting in NYC. Since we entered Connecticut via train, we didn't see a "Welcome to Connecticut" sign, so the Stamford train station sign needed to suffice.

Time to hit the road!