Things to Do in Mashpee

Now in its 16th season riding the rails, the Newport Dinner Train whisks up to 200 passengers through the lush lands and rich history of Aquidneck Island. A 44-ton diesel engine powers the locomotive, which pulls vintage 1940s dining cars, similar to the ones grandparents had to haul barefoot through the snow on their way to school each morning.

When the Newport Historical Society and the Newport Restoration Foundation joined forces, the result was Newport History Tours. Founded to celebrate the region’s rich and vibrant history, Newport History Tours designed more than a dozen tours that explore the city’s landmarks, historic sites, and more than 300 pre-Revolutionary War–era buildings. The tours touch on just about every aspect of the city’s past, with themes that range from the colonial era and Golden Age to prohibition smuggling, historical criminals, and lantern-lit holiday strolls.

EcoTourz’s cache of bikes and kayaks furnish unique perspectives of the Upper Cape’s natural splendor and Sandwich’s historical charms. Guides usher small groups of kayakers down Historic Mill Creek, where herons and osprey soar above the tall grass while conspiring to overthrow the neighborhood mockingbirds. On dry land, EcoTourz staff rents out bicycles and divulges prime pedaling spots, such as the marsh-lined Sandwich Boardwalk or some of the Cape’s oldest buildings.

Since 2007, the team behind Historic Tours of Newport has carefully consulted literature and publications documenting Newport’s heritage in its effort to chart engaging and enlightening van tours that propel passengers through more than 365 years of history. Expert guides dispense factoids about Newport’s social, religious, and architectural past on 60- to 90-minute Ten Mile Ocean Drive tours, which whisk visitors past a plentitude of sites including Bellevue Avenue’s 17th-century buildings and mansions, Chateau-sur-Mer’s dainty gardens, and the tree stump where town loon Humphreys McCaw declared himself king. Guests eager to peek inside one of myriad mansions detailed on the tour can opt for a Majestic Mansion tour, which permits escorted entry into one of six elegant manors during Ten Mile Ocean Drive excursions. Patrons purchasing private tours can additionally elect the two-hour Newport Now tour, which explores the city’s contemporary shopping malls, farmers' markets, and secret Redcoat-revivalist meeting places or custom design a tour around whatever sites and they yearn to behold.

Kingstown Bowl makes it easy to while away an afternoon or evening, encouraging visitors to stick around and shoot some pool, play some Wii Sports, or grab a drink between frames. Automatic scoring systems track the in-game action, and on Saturday nights, Rock-N-Bowl plunges the concourse into a nightclub atmosphere as a DJ spins requests and multicolored pins glow beneath concert-style lighting. The pub gives players a place to relax with bar food, free wireless Internet access, and the occasional U2 concert. The technicians at the pro shop offer advice on gear and perform services such as plugging and re-drilling finger holes.

Artist Deenie Pacik, armed with nearly two decades of crafting fused-glass artwork and teaching at schools such as Franklin Pierce University, imparts her expertise during a variety of classes. In Deenie's fully equipped home studio, small groups of students learn to fuse dichroic glass and powder into everything from shiny pendants to new work boots for Cinderella's cousin. Projects transform into translucent objets d’art in the glass kiln, which, as Deenie tells the Warwick Beacon, heats glass at three times the temperature used to bake a pizza, or eight billion times the heat used to glaze an ice sculpture.