Friday, July 2, 2010

Newport, Rhode Island


One of the great things about New York is the accessibility to get places.  We can hop on a bus, subway, or train and be just about anywhere within a several hundred mile radius.  We can easily (and pretty cheaply) get to cities like Boston or Philadelphia, or to towns like Cape Cod and Princeton, or to beaches like Long Beach and those in the Hamptons.  Several weekends ago, we took the train to Newport, Rhode Island.

The main draw for tourists in Newport is the mansions.  We toured mansions built in the mid-late 1800s by various American tycoons and millionaires like, for example, the Vanderbilt family.  Walking though other people's homes was something that we knew we’d enjoy and appreciate thanks to years of watching HGTV’s shows “Flip This House” and “What’s My House Worth”.  

Checking out the mansions online still didn’t prepare us for their monstrousness.  The immense size and opulent style of the mansions were insane.  I-N-S-A-N-E. 

Houses were made entirely of marble, adorned with 24-karat gold leaf imprinted walls, decorated with bronze sculptures, and topped with artist commissioned painted ceilings and crystal chandeliers... exactly the kind of stuff you’d probably recognize in our one bedroom apartment.  Look closely to see that our miniature tub is pure porcelain and imported from Italy.  Little Italy, in NYC, that is!

After the mansions, we ate the best clam chowder at The Black Pearl and then walked downtown along the water and piers.  Check out a few of the pictures I took.  Notice how tiny the people are next to the huge Weeping Willow tree that was in the backyard of one of the mansions, and look how tiny we are next to the mansions.  




1 comment:

Nick said...

That tree is huge! Did you try to climb it?