New Providence Travel, Rhode Island. Atop the confluence of the Providence, Moshassuck and Woonasquatucket Rivers, Rhode Island’s capital city offers some of the finest urban strolling in New England: around Brown University’s historic campus on 18th-century College Hill, along the landscaped Riverwalk trail, and among downtown’s handsome streets and lanes with their hipster-y cafes, art-house theaters, fusion restaurants and trendsetting bars. Once destined to become an industrial relic, Providence’s fate was spared when Buddy Cianci, its then controversial two-time mayor, rolled out a plan to revitalize the downtown core by rerouting subterranean rivers, reclaiming land and restoring historic facades. It created a city where history’s treasures are integrated into a creative present, not simply memorialized; where three centuries of architectural styles are unified in colorful urban streetscapes that are at once bold, beautiful and cooler than cool.