Newport is a busy place in the summer but Frances was able to book us a room at the Pineapple Inn. It doesn't look like much but it turned out to be very nice, run by great people and only cost us a little more than $500 for the weekend. Oh, Frances made that reservation last winter so if you plan to visit and not spend the entire budget on a hotel, book early.
On Saturday, we (Frances' brother Fred and his wife, Kathy and Frances' sister Tina and her guy Dan) took a tour of the island, which was well worth doing. Our driver gave us a complete history of Newport that actually seemed pretty accurate and part of the tour included a stop at Fort Adams, where we got a good look at the harbor.
Our tour also included admission to two mansions and we selected The Breakers and Marble House on Bellevue Avenue. The Breakers (the most popular tourist destination in Rhode Island) is really overwhelming in size, especially considering that Cornelius Vanderbilt II, who built it, considered it a "summer cottage" and rarely spent much of his summers there.
One can only imagine sometime in the late 1800s when the butler called the staff together with the dreaded news that the boss was coming that weekend and will be giving a party for 200. Staff must have been busy especially considering that the vacuum cleaner wasn't invented until 30+ years later.
As you'd expect, The Breakers "back yard" afforded a really great view.
Next stop on our tour was Marble House, the summer "cottage" of William K. Vanderbilt. Built entirely of imported Italian marble (at a cost of $11 million in 1892), this place simply staggers the imagination. We guess it's worth noting that there was no income tax back in those days.
Needless to say, Marble House has a lot of stained glass windows and they are really breathtaking. These mansions aren't what we'd call exactly "homey" but they served their purpose, which was to impress a lot of other rich people, we'd guess.
Anyhow, seeing these two mansions was time well spent for us. It's always fun to see how these really wealthy people lived, even if they used these huge places for only a few days out of each summer.
On Sunday morning we took a hike along the Cliff Walk. We couldn't have asked for better weather but after a mile or so of the Cliff Walk, we certainly could have asked for better shoes. There were lots of rocky sections where we were only a few feet from the edge. Amazingly, there were no fences or the constant warning signs that we are used to here in Connecticut. It was nice to see people with their kids enjoying it all.
We shot just a small amount of video. Many of the people who follow this blog have been to Newport numerous times so the video is really just for us to look at next winter after clearing the snow from our driveway.
It was a fun weekend!
We had a blast and look forward to future adventures together!! Tina and Dan
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