Providence Hotels

Roger Williams Park & Zoo
In 1871, Betsey Williams, great-great-great-granddaughter of the founder of Providence, donated her farm to the city as a public park. Perhaps the park's most significant attraction is the Roger Williams Park & Zoo. The zoo is home to more than 600 animals (polar bears, giraffes, lemurs) and performs some interesting conservation work, such as a study of the endangered American burying beetle. This little fellow eats dead animals and needs their carcasses to store his brood in.

Rhode Island State House
Designed by McKim, Mead and White in 1904, the Rhode Island State House rises above the Providence skyline, easily visible from the highways that pass through the city. Modeled in part on St Peter's Basilica in Vatican City, this very white building not only has the world's fourth-largest self-supporting marble dome, it also houses one of Gilbert Stuart's portraits of George Washington, which you might want to compare to a dollar bill from your wallet.

RISD Fine Art Museum
The state's finest art museum, the Rhode Island School of Design Museum, showcases everything from ancient Greek and Roman art to 19th- and 20th-century American paintings, furniture and decorative arts in a collection of over 80,000 pieces.