You might be glad of a hat on this walk. The wind whips off Narragansett Bay – the sea whipped in once, too, during the 1938 hurricane, and inundated downtown. You can often smell the ocean, and its promise of wide-open horizons, in the heart of the city. Which is one more of Providence’s charms. Tiny Rhode Island has almost 3,500 miles of sandy beaches, and its capital is no more than an hour from any – and just one hour from Boston and Cape Cod, and three from New York.