It's February vacation week for many schools in the region. This, of course, presents the annual quandary: how to occupy the kids with a minimum of nerve-wracking frenzy for mom and dad.
The answer? Head to the 20th annual Newport Winter Festival. This year's 10-day celebration, which runs through next Sunday, features more than 160 events.
For children there will be art museum tours, their own jazz concert, and a dance party. Among other highlights will be a fair with Radio Disney today and tomorrow at the Newport Marriott, which will include magicians, balloon artists, clowns, and face-painting.
Throughout the week, the International Tennis Hall of Fame will host family scavenger hunts, crafts lessons, and tourneys of Wii tennis, using the popular video game system. The Sovereign Bank Family Skating Center will be open for those looking to shake off residual cabin fever.
The whole family can enjoy a pizza cookoff, featuring pies from area restaurants, seal watches, a pancake-eating competition at a local International House of Pancakes Family Restaurant, and various tours of this historic seaside city, once a playground for the Gilded Age barons of the late 19th century.
Many events are free, but visitors also can purchase festival buttons that entitle them to discounts at paid events, and at area restaurants and stores.
Newport Winter Festival, Newport, R.I. Events are scheduled for various times, days, and locations through Feb. 24. Festival buttons $8. Visit newportevents.com/winterfest for a schedule of events and locations where buttons can be purchased. Directions: Newport is about 70 miles, or an hour and a half from Boston. Take Interstate 93 south to Route 24 south. Follow Route 24 through Fall River, then take Route 114 south into Newport.
PAUL MAKISHIMA
