a day ago
Finding a city of contrasts in Rhode Island
Jamie-Lyn Daley at the beachfront Harbor Hotel Provincetown beams: 'Welcome to P'Town, we don't get many Scottish visitors but – like everyone here – you're very welcome.'
The native Wampanoag people welcomed the pilgrims aboard the Mayflower too, who were blown off course here in 1620.
'I wonder what the pilgrims would have thought now,' smiles Tara as we flick through the Queer Adventure Guide & Map To LGBTQ+ Provincetown. P'Town today is far from the pilgrims' puritanical ways – rainbow flags proudly flutter along Commercial Street, with cannabis dispensaries, bijou art galleries and Scott Cakes, who plead proudly in pink, 'Legalise Gay Cupcakes'.
My daughter learns about LGBTQ+ communities at school and from a web of online influences. I wonder how she'll react to this visual onslaught of progressive positivity. 'It's good to see so many people just being themselves, it's not what you might expect in America when you see all the videos on TikTok,' she says.
You could lose all sense of time chilling on Commercial Street enjoying its left-field bookshops, outdoor art gallery and relaxing in the waterfront terraces that demonstrate why so many Americans flock to Cape Cod – but we're drawn to the natural world.
John F Kennedy adored Cape Cod and was instrumental in the establishment of the protected Cape Cod National Seashore. We explore this world of sweeping sand dunes, big skies and cobalt waters with the help of Art's Dune Tours.
Owner Robert Costa is third-generation Portuguese: 'My ancestors came here with many others from the Azores and Algarve. We found a welcome new home and we've still retain that positivity and sense of community in P'Town today.'
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Also finding a home in P'Town is a large community of artists who seek – and find – inspiration. Writers too. Renting a bike with Gale Force Bikes, Tara and I stumble across beach shacks in the dunes where Eugene O'Neill, Jack Kerouac and Tennessee Williams once held court. We return early one morning to hike. It's just us, the circling vultures, the odd rabbit and the hulking coyote crossing our path.
It's with heavy hearts we leave P'Town, but we've another 'P' to explore – Providence. The city may now be putting itself on the tourist map, but The Wall Street Journal in 1983 savaged it as 'little more than a smudge beside the fast lane to Cape Cod'.
An American friend told me 'Providence has done a Glasgow'. I see what my Providence-loving pal means. Providence's impressive renaissance has been grassroots-led with creative groups blossoming. Massive infrastructure projects have put real emphasis on riverside rejuvenation. The symbol of new Providence is 195 District Park, a green oasis staging arts events, named after the highway offramp it replaced.
We take a very Providence tour. I've taken Tara to Venice, but she's never been on a gondola. 'I didn't think my first gondola ride would be in America,' she laughs with 'Giovanni' and 'Figaro'. The surreal experience of easing around with skyscrapers soaring above is heightened when they belt out commendable barcaroles.
Providence's playfulness is helped by the students of Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), one of the world's great design centres; among its alumni Dumbarton-born Talking Heads frontman David Bryne. I find darker Scottish connections too. Scottish captain William Duddingston enforced taxes on shipping in 1772 with such zeal that the locals rebelled and burned his Royal Navy ship, the Gaspee.
There is constant interest walking the Providence River. There are memorials to the Irish Famine, Easter Rising and the Rhode Island marines who died in the 1983 Beirut Bombing. A wee green oasis sees native trees growing riverside and fountains. Above it all is the hulking portrait of Lynsea Montanari, 24, in turn holding a portrait of a tribal elder, a reminder we're on native land.
We are also in a thoroughly American city. The skyline looks like a computer game or cartoon version of a US city with hulking skyscrapers crowding around the iconic 'Superman Building'. This art deco gem looks like the offices of the Daily Planet, though sadly it is currently unoccupied – Providence's urban regeneration is promising but not there yet.
Providence, though, is full of surprises. 'Popping into' the RISD Museum became a triumphant couple of hours. As well as American art, three rooms burst with world-class works. The first has Degas, Manet and Cezanne, the second Van Gogh, Pissarro and Gauguin, and the third shares two of my favourite artists with Tara – Picasso and Matisse.
We found no foodie joy in P'Town, but then we didn't have Michelle. She is a larger-than-life Italian-American guide with Downcity Providence Food Tour, who graduated from Brown University. She sweeps us off to savour the brilliant Rhode Island Clam Chowder, then to the world's first plant-based food hall and on to West Africa, France and Mexico.
Our time in Providence reaches a spectacular crescendo with the WaterFire burning torch show, savoured from a fantastic restaurant, Café Nuovo, where we dine on boat-fresh local seafood. It's the perfect end for a trip to two New England 'P's' that has shown a reassuringly open and welcoming side to modern America.
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