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| The Atlantic Ocean is on my left and the mansions along the Cliff Walk are on my right |
Size wise, Rhode Island is the smallest of the fifty states. With a little over a million people, it is the eighth least populated state (Wyoming is #1 with 575,000). We docked in Newport Harbor, which was filled with large sailboats and several yachts that had values listed between 50 and 100 million dollars. I'm not sure if they were in town for the Newport Jazz Festival, which we missed by a day or simply keeping the tradition of Newport as a summer playground for the rich and famous. Newport has a long history as the place where the wealthy families from New York would retreat to during the summer. The Vanderbilt family would spend around six weeks per summer at their "summer cottage" which is actually a seventy room oceanfront mansion known as "The Breakers".
Newport is another great city that is easy to explore by foot. The harbor is not large enough for cruise ships so we were anchored offshore. Getting ashore by tender (small boats) is never fun but we were up early and on one of the first tenders. We took off along America's Cup Ave. which turned into Memorial Blvd. This took us to the Cliff Walk which is a coastal walking path that passes behind several of the many large mansions of Newport. As we walked along, with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the mansions on the other side, we were inspired. We thought it might be nice to see if we could buy one of homes. Nothing too over the top, we don't need seventy rooms, maybe something in the 25-30 room range. Sadly, we quickly realized that we'd probably be a few quarters short on the price tag. I'm sure the upkeep on those places is pretty expensive and being intentionally homeless isn't bad, so we quickly put that idea to rest.
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| Easton's Beach, the Cliff Walk begins here |
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| The Breakers |
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| The Marble House |
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| Newport Tower. It was originally a windmill built in the mid-1700's |
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In addition to exploring by foot, there is also a local bus #67 that runs frequently along Bellevue Ave. and the cliffs area. It stops close to several of the mansions such as the Breakers and Rosecliff and Marble House. All of these mansions are now owned by the Newport Historical Society and are open to the public. We toured the Breakers several years ago, and while I can't remember what the cost was it was well worth it to get a glimpse of how the wealthiest of the wealthy lived.
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| Not exactly a 100 million dollar yacht but a cool picture |
