NARRAGANSETT, R.I. :
Here's where Rhode Islanders bring their boards to catch a wave; long and flat, the beach is great for combers, too.
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Tiverton Four Corners
An Eden east of Newport
By Lynda Morgenroth
 rossing state lines - which is to say, leaving Massachusetts for the day - seems rakish, adventurous, time-expansive. When the destination is a rustic crossroads enriched by arts, crafts, and fresh baked savories, a day can take on a lyric quality.
Proceed to Tiverton Four Corners in Tiverton, R.I., where Main Road (Route 77) and East Road (Route 179) cross.
To understand why it's so pretty here, a brief geography lesson: Picture Rhode Island's Newport County. One peninsula includes Portsmouth, Middletown, and Newport. East of this Eden, also on Narragansett Bay, is the bucolic ''second'' peninsula that includes Tiverton and Little Compton - a region of verdant farmland, water views, and excellent stone walls.
Getting there:
From Boston, take Route 128 south to Route 24 south into Rhode Island. Take Route 77 south at the Tiverton/Little Compton exit. It's about a 60-90 minute drive.
Resources:
Newport Convention Visitors Bureau, 800-976-5122; www.gonewport.com. Also on web: www.visitnewport.com.
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On Tiverton's Main Road you pass strips of bright green meadow and farmland on one side, the Sakonnet River on the other. At the thoroughfare of Tiverton Four Corners, a collection of art galleries, stores in historic buildings, and Gray's Ice Cream awaits you.
If you wish art before ice cream, visit the year-old gallery of former Bostonians Nilsa Garcia-Rey and Tom Kelly. Oannes Gallery (401-624-9780) is on the first floor of their wood-frame house - two gracious light-filled rooms of carefully chosen ceramics, jewelry and sculpture. In the front room, changing exhibits are offered, currently art furniture and pastels. In the back room, an array of colorful utilitarian pottery is sold, along with other gift items.
Kelly and Garcia-Rey are artists as well as proprietors. His smooth-as-silk wooden tables are on display. And Garcia-Rey's painterly art tiles - homages to images in art history (Van Gogh's sunflower, Georgia O'Keeffe's lily form) - spark the celadon-colored walls.
Across the way, the Donovan Gallery (401-624-4000) carries antiques, as does The Arnold Smith House (401-624-8791), part of which is 250 years old. The Virginia Lynch Gallery (401-624-3392) is on the second floor of the building that houses Provender (401-624-8084), a gourmet takeout and specialty shop. Upstairs, you can view drawing, painting, and sculpture in a peaceful, subdued setting. Downstairs, you can regale yourself with suitably artsy sandwiches or one of the excellent breads, meal-sized cookies, or scones.
Fortified, check out the glittering prizes at Ridabock Hand Blown Glass (401-624-8220), another low-key, light-suffused gallery. And at long last abandon restraint and have a huge ice cream at Gray's (401-624-4500). If you have just one, try a subtle, sophisticated flavor - Grapenut, frozen pudding, or ginger peach brandy. If your first is an aperitif ice cream, go-for-broke with something chocolate as your entree.
Gardeners can be left to wander for quite some time at Courtyards (401-624-8682), where all manner of fetching garden ornaments are arranged in a garden by a rushing brook. Inside, the store is filled with appealing folk art.
The brook leads to a pond. Lo and behold, one is at Mill Pond Shops, including Country Cabins Antiques, Pond Lilies (women's clothing), Sakonnet Painters Cooperative (Wednesday-Saturday, 10-5 p.m.; Sunday 12-5 p.m.), Artrageous (hand painted furnishings), and Expressions (cards, gifts).
But enough shopping; many fine nature preserves with trails and views are just off Main Road (Route 77). Soon after you exit from Route 24 to Route 77, look on the left for a sign to Fort Barton. Now a peaceful plateau, covered with wildflowers in early May (including golden outcroppings of trout lilies), Fort Barton was of great strategic importance during the Revolutionary War.
Emile Rueker Wildlife Refuge (401-949-5454), an Audubon Society of Rhode Island property just south of Fort Barton off Route 77, has trails along the salt marsh to Jack's Island Beach.
And for Weetamoo Woods, from Four Corners, take Route 179 east to this 450-acres preserve of woodland, swamp, and rocky ledges surrounding remnants of an 18th-century mill village.
Or do the romantic car thing that makes you feel like you're in a vintage Austin, even if you're in a Buick. Head south on Route 77 for about 9 miles all the way to the tip, Sakonnet Point in Little Compton. Things get ritzier as you head south, with grander homes and more elaborate landscaping. But Sakonnet Point is totally ungussied up - fishermen, trucks, swooping seabirds. The rocky breakwater is both walkable and sitable. Meditate on Sakonnet Light.
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