Day 10 - Newport, RI to Boston, MA

Sunday, May 10, 2015
Malden, Massachusetts, United States
Our hotel didn't provide breakfast so we had a nice Mothers Day breakfast across the street and then headed for Newport. When we crossed the bridge we could see it was still foggy and the temperature dropped 10 degrees. We bought tickets to tour two mansions.  
 

Newport was a summer resort where tycoons like the Vanderbilts built "summer cottages" which are so immense it took staffs of 30-40 people just to keep the places running. The rooms are covered with painting, silk, platinum gilding, carvings, tapestries, every kind of thing that announced to the world that the owner of the house was filthy rich and was determined that his house would be better than everyone else's. To me it was pretty tasteless - how many different decorative things can you cram into each room just to impress people with your money. Showing off taken to amazing heights. AND these were "summer cottages" - people only lived in them 8 to 12 weeks a year. There were some pretty things here and there, but everything was overpowered by the sheer amount of stuff crammed into each room. One house did have some pretty amazing mosaic work in the floors and ceilings. Unfortunately no photos inside, so these were stolen from the internet.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 























 







 
 
This was definitely the Downton Abbey of America in the early 1900s. It was known as the "Gilded Age" which wasn't necessarily a compliment. Each house had buttons in the bedroom and bath areas where the owner could push a button to summon a chambermaid or butler to come and "draw a bath" or "lay out clothes". Even if I was a bazillionaire, I could not ring a bell to tell someone else to "draw my bath" - good God, they couldn't turn on the faucet themselves!!?
 
Summer was the big social scene....women would change clothes 6-7 times a day for their various activities, always with attention to detail because they would be "seen" and would have to display how important and wealthy they were.

In the Breakers which was a Vanderbilt house, the recorded guide said something about Mr. Vanderbilt being a simple man. Really?? The recorded guide also stressed how these were definitely family homes and the family loved to gather and play and do all the things that people do in these homes. I only found one little corner in one of the homes where I would feel comfortable curling up with a book. Otherwise it would be like living in a big gaudy drafty museum.
 
 
 
 
 








 
We toured Vanderbilt's "The Breakers" and another "The Elms" owned by a coal barron. There they had a separate tour "behind the scenes" that took you to the servants' quarters. I really wanted to do that, but when we finished touring the house, the servants tour had already left and the next one wasn't for another couple hours. I think that tour would have been interesting. They told in one of the houses how the ladies' maids had to remove all the covered buttons from the ladies' underwear before washing and then sew them all back on again. Every time they were washed.  

But it was an interesting day.
 
 
 
 
 


Then we went to the main part of town to eat, and walked and walked trying to find a restaurant that served clams and seafood and that turned out to be difficult. We thought there would be tons of them since the town was filled with tourists. We finally found a tavern that had steamed clams and calamari. Not bad but not the best I've ever had. We're still looking for the real New England seafood place. And Mary, we will have a lobster roll if we can find one.
 
 
 
 
 
 
After lunch we drove around Ocean Drive which goes along the south coast of the island past some private mansions and a park where a whole bunch of people were flying kites. We were going to walk along the cliff walk which goes along the cliffs in front of all those mansions so you can see into their back yards. But by then we were tired and decided to just head to Boston.  
 
 
 
 
 
We thought Sunday the traffic wouldn't be so bad so we went right through downtown Boston, but there was a wreck so it wasn't so fast. We only got lost at the end when GPS Mary and Dora the Explorer didn't agree....we followed Dora for awhile because we thought she has the most up to date info, but figured out she had no clue where we were going. GPS Mary got us safely to our hotel. We should trust Mary.

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Comments

mike wess
2015-05-11

for my money, in boston, Legal Seafoods was always the best day in and day out. The biggest was Anthonys Pier 4 (get the clam diggers special, a bucket of clams, corn, etc). No Name restaurant was also good. Oysters- Union Oyster House

Damarys
2015-05-11

WOW! What a great trip! Enjoy! Just received the postcards for Bella. Thank you!!!!!

Romy
2015-05-11

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous (ought to be rich and stupid). Never did understand the need to flaunt the wealth. Keep it to yourself and do good things without telling everyone would have been a better use. Oh well .... no accounting for some.

Romy
2015-05-11

Have fun in Boston. Call Fred if you need some recommendations for places to eat. I'm sure he'd have a few for you.

Etta
2015-05-11

I loved seeing how the American royalty lived in Newport.

susie
2015-05-14

You know, those mansions were built BEFORE income tax laws. That's one reason they could afford to build them so big. I read a history about them once and one of the families(I don't remember which one) had a dinner party for about 50 people. There was a planter the length of the table and for party favors the guest were give small spoons to dig for buried treasures in the planter filled with sand and emeralds, rubies and diamonds. And Yes, I think it's cool in RI. I always take sweatpants and sweatshirts when I visit in the summer.

2025-02-13

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