Newport, Rhode Island
10/13/2007 01:17 AM Filed in: Travel
Rhode Island Mansion
We drove along Ocean Avenue and saw a number of beautiful mansions in Newport.
We got up this morning and had a nice breakfast at our hotel. Then we got on the road and made our way towards Rhode Island.
Our drive today was very wet. We were rained on for most of the way, with some patches of VERY hard rain. No mishaps and what a fun drive, as usual. We saw many quaint towns and lots of beautiful scenery. New England truly is beautiful in the fall.
We arrived in Rhode Island and tried to check in to our hotel. Unfortunately the room was unavailable so we had to find something to do. We entered “The Breakers” mansion into our navigation and got underway. We arrived at the mansion only to discover that a few tour buses had beaten us there. The lineup to take the tour looked unending. So we decided to look at the outside and move on.
We drove around the area and arrived at “Rosecliff” mansion and again looked around. The mansion was very pretty, but again, we were thwarted by a bus tour, so we got back in the car and drove on. We got onto Ocean Avenue and made our way past many stately mansions. They were huge monsters of architecture. One, the Marble house, had its exterior made entirely of marble and had dining chairs of solid brass that required 2 footmen per chair to move around and seat people. Talk about excess.
The coastline along the mansion drive was very pretty. We stopped in a few places to look and make photos. The photo above is from one such stop and shows one of the private mansions.
Finally we arrived back at our hotel and checked in. After getting settled in our room we decided to go get some dinner. We found a place in our tour book called the Brick Alley Restaurant and Pub and decided to give it a try. The pub was located on Thames street and was surrounded by shops. After dinner we walked around the street a bit but many shops had closed already.
Tomorrow we head off to Cape Cod, but probably not until after we explore Thames street a little more.
More to come!