Great Escapes: Great Escape: Blithewold Mansion

This mother's day, you can buy mom a big bunch of flowers, or better yet, take her to a place with more spring blooms than you can possibly buy. Just head to Rhode Island. You can get there on less than a tank.

In the small town of Bristol, time seems to stand still. With its quaint downtown streets and its unhurried pace, Bristol has a quiet and irresistible charm.

A must-see for mothers and daughters, Blithewold Mansion and its gardens and arboretum. The 33-acre estate is brimming with springtime blossoms. Its biggest draw: daffodils.

"We came because of the daffodils and mom had never been in the spring before, and I knew there was something like an acre of daffodils to look at," daughter Sara Adams said.

Adams and her 93-year-old mother Isabelle picked the perfect time to come. Just about everywhere you look, daffodils of different shades dot the landscape. There are bright whites and brilliant yellows, 50,000 daffies in all.

"I'm so happy to be here, it's like old times," Isabelle Pettigrew said.

Other visitors share that sense of nostalgia.

"Blithewold is just the perfect spot to be," visitor Sylvia Hampton said. "I'm hoping to get my family here for Mother's Day,"

You'll have to wait until next year for the sold-out Mother's Day brunch, but there's plenty of room to roam the grounds this Sunday. You can take in sweeping views of Narragansett Bay, see the biggest sequoia this side of the Rockies, and believe it or not, you can even get lost in Blithewold's bamboo grove.

"You can go play hide and seek in there for hours," Karen Binder of Blithewold Mansion said.

And while the main attraction is still the daffodils, Binder said other flowers are soon to follow.

"In about another two weeks the rock garden will be coming out and the display gardens the tulips," Binder said.

Some early bloomers are already here, giving visitors something extra to buzz about.

"Well, it's so beautiful," Pettigrew said.

"It's a lovely place to visit and the gardens are splendid," Adams said.

It’s a memorable trip for mother's day, or anyday.