Sunday 2 September: Newport RI, Cliff Walk and the Newport Mansions.
Early morning, and we are already in town by 9am. At the visitor information center we gear ourselves up with maps and list of highlights, and we catch a bus for the first activity of the day.
The Cliff Walk is a 3.5 miles trail along the SE shore, mostly rocky. Of course we are not properly kitted out for this walk, and we giggle when we read the sign “appropriate footwear required”. We are wearing flip flops 🙂 But we take the walk anyway, starting from the south end. Which was not bad at all, even in flip flops. The views over the ocean and the bays are quite spectacular. A long section of the Cliff Walk borders very impressive private properties.
When we get to the other end of the trail, we head towards the town, and start the marathon through the Newport Mansions. Which is a collection of historical houses with a wide range of interests: decorative arts, architecture, landscapes or family history. All mostly built in the late 1800s. It seems if you were super rich at that time, you just had to have a mansion on Bellevue Avenue, Newport RI.
We stop first at The Breakers, an impressive 70-room summer Estate of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. Then Rosecliff, Marble House, Chateu-sur-Mer. Our favorite was The Elms, with its elaborate gardens.
Early afternoon we are thoroughly dusty, overheated, mansioned-out and walked-out, so we gradually head towards the wharfs, day dreaming of our healthy lunch onboard s/v Cloudy Bay. But on the way to the bakery, we are distracted by a pizza place and we have a sinful lunch there. Vouching it will be the only junk food meal this month.
Back on Cloudy Bay we relax in the cockpit with a cup of tea, then we fly the drone over the harbor. Very nice view from above.
Just before sunset we go back ashore for a short walk to the New York Yacht Club, but a big fence cuts us off. Too bad. So instead, we dinghy to it. Impressive club, with a big lawn and very big club house. It certainly looks very posh. We carry on dinghying along the shoreline right up to the fort, then we get very chilly and return to mother-ship for a quiet evening onboard.
Newport Rhode Island photo album