Experience the distinctiveness and diversity of New England's delicious cuisine as well as the region's lifestyles and beautiful scenery during a weeklong journey through Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Discuss with professional winemakers, lobstermen, fishermen, and farmers, the products they grow and harvest from the lands and seas. Learn about specialty products created by local entrepreneurs. Enjoy field trips to vineyards, farms, sugarhouses, markets and the ocean. Highlights include a lobster boat-pulling cruise in Maine, a lecture on organic cheese-making at a small Vermont farm and a visit to a Vermont sugarhouse with a traditional serving of "sugar-on snow", the Vermont tradition of boiling syrup and serving it over ice. In Portland, meet with local fisherman to discuss the difficulty of fishing in the Gulf of Maine.
Walking for up to one mile over varied terrain, unpaved and uneven surfaces, and boarding a boat. Standing on field trips.

Itinerary

Arrival Newport, R.I., 2 nights; coach to Ogunquit, Maine, 2 nights; coach via New Hampshire to Brandon, Vt., 2 nights; coach to Newport, R.I., departure.

Newport (Rhode Island)

Lavish mansions, billowing sails, and a plethora of culinary and scenic delights characterize this world-famous seaport, beloved by the East Coast elite during the 19th century. The Gilded Age lives on in Newport, as does the earlier Colonial period, as dozens of historic homes and buildings recall bygone eras of seafaring and socializing.