We headed out from Philadelphia, and aside from stopping at nearly every service plaza along the way, we drove straight to Norwalk, Connecticut. Our first stop was a dinner stop at Harbor Lights. It was a perfect setting on the Norwalk harbor for my first lobster roll of the journey.
Our waiter suggested we check out Norwalk Inn for the nights lodging. We had already considered Norwalk Inn, so we made reservations and headed there. We got settled in there and we went to Marshalls to replace my missing socks and underwear. Tammy needed conditioner, too. On the way back to the hotel I commented on how nice it was to have on-site parking. A couple of old churches and a small park just down the road from our hotel caught our attention for further investigation. We dropped the sundries off at the room and went down to the hotel bar.
In Adam’s Rib Restaurant and Bar, we were surrounded by granite floors, maple wood wainscoting, crowning woodwork, torchlight ornamentation and cherry wood furniture. The décor in the lounge was warm and inviting with cherry wood flooring, Brazilian granite tabletops, maple wall paneling, antique art prints, polished birch furniture and Venetian plaster walls. I sampled a draft Radeberger Pilsner, a fine German Pilsner for the first time and made some new friends before we wrapped up the night with shots of Jameson.
We got up after sunrise and went back to Adam’s Rib for breakfast. Our waiter was obviously not performing his normal duties. I could see him as a member of the maintenance staff. When we got our food, it was all excellent, even if it may not have been exactly what we ordered.
After we checked out from the hotel, the next adventure was to investigate the park and two churches. The white wooden church was the First Congregational Church which was built in 1924 to replace the 1848 church which was destroyed by fire in 1917. The 1848 meeting place was built to replace the one that was burned by the British in 1779 during the Revolutionary War. The first meeting house of Norwalk’s First Congregational Church was built in 1659. Across the street from First Congregational Church is the park with a gazebo and a WW1 memorial. The stone church is Saint Paul’s on the Green. It was founded in 1737 and the current building is the fifth one on the site. It was also burned in 1779. St. Paul’s was founded by a priest missionary sent to the colonies from London by the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG). We found a 9/11 memorial on the grounds of St. Paul’s.
When we were done exploring the things that had caught our attention, we proceeded to our declared destination of the day. We got to the Maritime Aquarium at Norwalk at about 10:30.
We enjoyed the aquarium. By the time we left, we were thinking about having our afternoon snack. We made it as far as New Haven and stopped at Shell & Bones Oyster Bar and Grill. Shell & Bones is located in a space that has been a restaurant for decades. The completely remodeled restaurant pays homage to the area’s nautical history while offering a light and airy space with clean lines, amazing water views, ocean breezes, a fireplace for chilly nights and an award-winning Executive Chef.
After we were completely satisfied by our seafood offerings, we traveled through the campus of Yale University. We can now claim that we went to Yale. There were some spectacular buildings, but we didn’t get photos. We decided it was time to explore a lighthouse, so we headed to Old Saybrook with intentions to photograph the Saybrook Breakwater Lighthouse and the Inner Lighthouse (Lynde Point). We got glimpses of the lighthouses from the borough of Fenwick and learned that the lighthouses were surrounded by private property. Later we learned that the borough of Fenwick in Old Saybrook was the home of Katherine Hepburn. Once again, we got no photos. We finally found a nice park with ponds and railroad history in Old Saybrook. We got pictures! Fort Saybrook Monument Park was the site of a fort built in 1636 and war with the Pequots in 1637. The fort burned in 1647 and a new fort was built north of the original. The fort was armed and manned in 1812 but did not see action. The remains of the fort were leveled in the early 1870s and replaced with railroad track and a roundhouse. The park also has an elevated boardwalk that passes through a tidal marsh.
After a short time checking out the park we continued east. We made it almost 20 miles before we were caught in a traffic jam. I spent at least an hour staring at a wall hoping to go across the Gold Star Memorial Bridge in New London before we watched the sunset as we chose an alternate route across the Thames River Bridge sixteen miles to the north. Apparently, a motorist ran in to a stopped police car and then spun into two other vehicles sending the police officer and one other motorist to the hospital and closing the bridge for about five hours. We followed a route through the middle of nowhere on routes 165 and 102 and eventually made it to Newport, Rhode Island. We planned to go to The Landing on Bowen’s Warf, but the kitchen started closing at 8:00 after Labor Day. We had dinner at The Lobster Bar right next door to The Landing. The food was great, the service was excellent, and the view was nice at The Lobster Bar. After dinner we found rooms at the Days Inn in Middletown and called it a night.
