Boston Globe: Paddlers’ paradise A little city looks out on what the Abenaki called ‘big waters,’ in a setting as favored by campers, hikers, and others at the water’s edge
@NewportVT is featured in The Boston Globe's Travel Section 21 August 2011. Click through here to read the story by Dirk Van Susteren. It's quite a fabulous story and mentions a number of Newport area businesses including Lago Trattoria, Little Gnesta, Northern Forest Canoe Trail, Woof on the Wharf, Newport City Renaissance Corporation, Gateway Center, Big Joe's, Baan Thai, Newport Natural Market & Cafe, Clyde River Recreation, The East Side Restaurant & Pub, The Haskell Free Library & Opera House. Quite a lovely splash in the major newspapers in New England.
Paddlers’ paradise
A little city looks out on what the Abenaki called ‘big waters,’ in a setting as favored by campers, hikers, and others at the water’s edge
by Dick Van Susteren/Globe Correspondent
August 21, 2011
August 21, 2011
NEWPORT, Vt. - It’s 8 on a Saturday night, and plates are clattering as servers deliver big portions of pork and veal chops and dishes featuring the likes of risotto and gnocchi to diners in the three rooms of Lago Trattoria. The chef and owner of the Main Street restaurant, Frank Richardi, is an acrobat in the open kitchen as he shakes a skillet, flames lapping its sides; reaches for a ringing phone; and nods hellos to customers.
It’s busy, but by 9, Lago has seated its last diner. By 10, except for a few patrons at the bar, the place is quiet. So, in fact, is all of Main Street on this night in the height of the summer tourist season.
A few strollers step along the boardwalk on the city’s elegant little waterfront. Some chattering, in French, echoes from a moored sailboat. But mostly, at this hour, in this city of 5,000, on this southern end of Lake Memphremagog, near the Quebec border, things are hushed.
Newport, Vt., is not to be confused with Newport, R.I.
“Yes, Newport is sleepy,’’ confirms Ruth Sproull, owner of Little Gnesta, an inviting bed-and-breakfast in a 19th-century house, a short walk from both Lago and the waterfront. Sproull, a Midwest transplant, moved to Newport last year because she liked the city’s location in the rural and wooded North Country.
“Most visitors I see are in bed early, so they can be on the water or bike trail early,’’ she says.
