A great place to stroll and check out the flowers.  Gary Higgins photo/The Patriot Ledger

Brewster Gardens, Plymouth

It’s beautiful, quiet, nearby and free. Whether you’re after history or a nice walk by a babbling brook, Brewster Gardens is the place to go. The formal entrance is off Water Street under the brick-lined portico, but you can start at the Jenney Grist Mill instead for easier – and free – parking.

Cost: $15.06 for lunch and ice cream

Time: 60 minutes

Heather Nickerson, Plymouth, enjoys the solitude prior to her midday start workday. Gary Higgins photo/The Patriot Ledge

WALK AROUND

You can eat first and walk later, or walk first and eat after. The Water Street entrance takes you under a white portico with young wisteria plants climbing toward the overhead trellis.

Cement paths run through the landscaped park, along Town Brook.

At the back of the park, the Pilgrim Maiden statue pays tribute to the Pilgrim women who made the daunting voyage from England to America.

Faces representing Plymouth’s newer immigrants peer out from a stainless steel sculpture near the front of the garden. Follow the path over a footbridge and under Main Street along the brook. The path ends at the Jenney Grist Mill, where ice cream awaits next to the rushing water of the mill.

Gary Higgins photo/The Patriot Ledger

QUICK BITES

Walk downtown or along the waterfront to get lunch before the stroll through the park. There are many great – and quick – lunch places close by. You can get fried seafood on the wharf. Grab pizza or a wrap at a cafe or a deli. Have an ethnic experience at one of the Indian, Mexican and Thai restaurants on Court Street.

RELAX

Brewster Gardens offers a respite from the bustling tourist scene along the waterfront. Just the sound of the flowing water is cooling, and birds flock to the indigenous wetland plants along the brook. Upland grassy areas are good spots for picnicking or just lying down and gazing at the sky for a while.