My Mom and I will be in the Providence area and want to know what we should do. We already have our plans set for the rest of the trip (Newport Mansions, Cape Cod and other plans). We will be able to spend 1/2 day or an entire day in Prov.

Do you recommend the Federal Hill area? We plan on eating at the Louis Family Rest. so is there anything near there worth seeing?

We like to antique, stroll around, shop, historical houses/musuems etc...

Roger Williams Park is a nice park with a great zoo, walking paths and a Natural History Museum.

http://www.frommers.com/destinations...311010029.html

http://www.frommers.com/destinations...1_indattr.html

Lots of good options here, all of which I can recommend.

Yes, Federal Hill is an excellent dining neighborhood, mostly for Italian food. Pane e Vino, Mediterraneo, Costantino's Venda Ravioli (an Italian grocery with some dining space), Pastiche (for desserts), and Angelo's Civita Farnese are all good choices.

The RISD Art Museum is excellent, though note it's closed in the month of August. Also liked the Henry Lippitt and John Brown Houses from the list at the above link.

You could do a trolley tour, about 1 hr. and it will give you overview of the city. If you only have 1/2 day, then you are limited.

http://www.providencetrolleytours.com/Home_Page.html

Visitor Info Center:

1 Sabin Street, Providence
401.751.1177
1.800.233.1636
[email protected]

Hours of Operation
Monday - Saturday
9 a.m. - 5 p.m.

http://www.uptake.com/rhode_island/p...de_island.html

Providence is a small compact city and you can easily walk it.

The Federal Hill area is known for it's Italian restaurants as well as other restaurants. We have eaten there many times and the food is excellent. Cassarinos is mentioned in one of the websites and we love eating there. There is a mall you can visit (Providence Place Mall).

+1 on the RISD art museum. If you're visiting soon, don't forget to check-out their current cocktail culture exhibition
http://www.risdmuseum.org/exhibition...&id=2147489732

Even the Frommer's site didn't mention the Johnson & Wales Culinary Museum.
http://www.culinary.org/

We visited quite a few years ago when it was in a different location. A student tour guide gave us a very interesting tour but I don't see any mention of tours on the website. We saw an exhibit of stoves with interesting stories. There were also things we've never seen such as busts carved from tallow. It's such a unique museum but doesn't appear to be very well known.