NEWPORT -The lofty arch of the Yaquina Bay Bridge rises high over the wide estuary of the Yaquina River as it pours into the Pacific at the city of Newport.Just off the north side of this bridge, which eliminated a long ferry crossing when it was built in 1936, is an 1871 lighthouse-turned-museum. Virtually beneath its south anchor is the Rogue Ales Brewery and, nearby, the acclaimed facilities of the Oregon Coast Aquarium and the Oregon State University Hatfield Marine Science Center. From the midpoint of the bridge, to the east, you get a bird’s-eye view of the Newport Bayfront, a working waterfront area with numerous small restaurants and tourist attractions.

About 177 miles west of Bend, a four-hour drive, there is no place on the Oregon coast nearer to Central Oregon than Newport. That’s good news, because even when winter weather is prone to rain, mist and occasional fog, this is a community where the entire family can enjoy a pleasant getaway weekend.

A little history

I typically start my visit on the Bayfront, on the north side of the Yaquina River about a half-mile upstream from the mouth. This was where Newport – named for the Narragansett Bay town in Rhode Island – got its start in the 1880s. Many of the buildings were built at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. Some are still in use as canneries and maritime suppliers; others are now galleries and gift shops, cafes and bars. Sea lions bark from the piers where fishing boats are tied and where colorful nets and crab pots are piled.

There’s been some attempt to imitate San Francisco’s Fisherman’s Wharf in such attractions as a wax museum and a Ripley’s novelty museum. Children might enjoy these, but I’m more drawn to the sunken Undersea Gardens, where big windows on the bay yield closeups of thousands of denizens of the deep, eels and octopi among them. Scuba divers introduce them to viewers through double-glass windows.

On the hill behind the bay, sharp eyes may spot a widow’s walk or two atop Victorian-era homes. It’s no secret that ocean fishing is among the world’s most dangerous professions, as last month’s shipwreck near Tillamook attests.

A Fisherman’s Memorial, looking seaward from a shelter in Yaquina Bay State Park uphill from the Bayfront, is Newport’s tribute to a century of lost sons and daughters. Mementos from friends and relatives decorate the marble block.

Looming above the memorial is the Yaquina Bay Lighthouse, built in 1871 to warn mariners of the headland and estuary. Today it has been refurbished in the style of the 1870s and opened as a museum. It includes the quarters of the lighthouse keeper and, it is said, the ghost of teen-age Muriel Trevenard, who disappeared here under mysterious circumstances around the turn of the last century.

The marine experience

Newport’s number-one visitor attraction is across the bridge. The Oregon Coast Aquarium is considered one of the top 10 aquariums in the United States, according to USA Today and Coastal Living magazine. You may come for ”Passages of the Deep,” a 200-foot-long, acrylic walk-through tank with three separate sections for shallow-water, open-ocean and deep-water creatures. But you’ll be equally fascinated by the jellyfish exhibit; by America’s largest walk-through seabird aviary, including everyone’s favorites, the puffins; by the exhibit of the endangered Western snowy plover; and by such marine mammals as sea otters, harbor seals and California sea lions. One of the sea lions, 18-year-old Lea, gives gentle smooches to the noses of visitors who take behind-the-scenes tours.

The aquarium’s newest exhibit, ”Claws!” (think ”Jaws!”), is scheduled to run into 2008. It displays primarily crustaceans, such as crabs, lobsters, shrimp and barnacles, but also some other clawed marine creatures, including the horseshoe crab, which is an anthropod and not a true crab. Intimate looks at Dungeness crabs dining on shellfish, and Alaskan king crabs dancing on two legs, are rare treats. A comic-book motif to interpretive signs, and several hands-on demonstrations, make this a winner with school-age children.

A stone’s throw away in the Hatfield Marine Science Center, operated by Oregon State University, a large octopus in a touch tank greets visitors. Other displays are more geared toward oceanographic science: marine resource management, plate tectonics, undersea volcanoes, tsunami prediction and more. There’s also a fascinating new exhibit on invasive species. This center is more geared for mom, dad and science-savvy teen-agers than for younger children.

If you haven’t yet had enough marine exploration, drive 4.5 miles north to Yaquina Head, home to the Yaquina Head Outstanding Natural Area. The tidepools here are some of the finest on the Oregon coast, and are certainly the most accessible, as even wheelchairs can approach them. The lower the tides – at least minus two feet is ideal – the more you’ll see of green sea anemones, purple sea urchins, fire-orange sea stars and much more. Just be sure to watch your footing on the slippery rocks. The sanctuary, administered by the Bureau of Land Management, also includes an interpretive center and another 19th-century lighthouse.

There’s one more place in Newport worth a visit of at least an hour or two: Nye Beach. A popular vacation spot for urban tourists from the late 1880s to the start of World War I, this seaside neighborhood once featured a spa, a natatorium, a dance hall, a theater, beachside cabins and several hotels. Today its old buildings have created a small-village atmosphere with shops, restaurants and art galleries. There are several wine shops and bookstores, and the Newport Performing Arts Center is just uphill from the beach.

Where to stay

At the top of the hill overlooking Nye Beach is the Sylvia Beach Hotel, my favorite place to stay in all of Newport.

Gudrun (Goodie) Cable bought this 1913 cliff house in 1987 and turned it into a charming 20-room inn, with each room dedicated to a different author. You’ll find the Mark Twain Room, the Emily Dickinson Room, the Oscar Wilde Room and the Edgar Allan Poe Room. There are no televisions, no phones, but there is a large upstairs library and game room where guests are encouraged to mingle, as they are in the Table of Contents restaurant, where diners gather at large communal tables.

Sylvia Beach, by the way, is not a seaside strand; Beach was a leader in the Paris literary movement of the 1920s and ’30s. If you come on March 14, you’ll celebrate not only Beach’s birthday but the hotel’s 20th anniversary.

On my most recent visit to Newport, I was accompanied by my dog, Banjo (see accompanying story), so I was unable to stay at the Sylvia Beach. Instead, my choice of lodging was The Whaler, just a few blocks uphill from Nye Beach center. Not only is this clean and spacious motor inn dog-friendly; it practically embraces canines, providing a pet sheet, dog treats and a scoop bag to dog owners and charging only an additional $5.