July 10 - 14 Newport, RI

We had so much fun in Newport!  Our stay was long enough for us to get rested and be total tourist.  

lunch at the Black Pearl

Black room at the Black Pearl 

Red house, black door circa 1710 founded by Doris Duke

Reading on the bow with my KY pillow - thanks sisters!!

every night this view from the boat

As you will see i got Harry on the public transportation bus that took us around town and to tour the mansions on Bellevue Avenue.  

The marina was very busy with ferries and mega yachts and everyone coming and going but it was a fun place to be.

beautiful schooner taking some folks 'out'

Notice the name:  'Unbridled' within a horse head design - curious huh?

These two braved the busy harbor while having a cocktail tethered to their boat!

And Ann Leslie - i took this one for you.  Meet the earlier Rochambeau, French nobleman and general that assisted the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.

The mansions were more than amazing, built in the Gilded Age, by the guys who built America, using their steel, railroad, mining (coal), monies to out do one another on this very famous Bellevue Avenue in Newport.   We giggled at the absolute opulence exhibited in these homes that they called ‘summer cottages’ because all were second or third or fourth homes where they spent, at the most, 6-8 weeks out of the year.  unbelievable.  Most would not allow photos taken inside but i was allowed to take shots in the kitchens....so organized and so BIG!

Tessie Oelrich's Rosecliff - known in its day as the party house.  they tell us the Great Gatsby was filmed here.  

Back yard view ain't bad...nice wedding spot huh?

Another mistress, Alva Vanderbilt from the summer cottage called the Marble House, hosted Women's Suffrage Movement rallies known as 'Votes for Women' on the back lawn - yea, that's what they call it, not 'the back yard!'  

'The Breakers', the Vanderbilt's summer cottage - one of their 8 homes, was 156,000 square feet!  They built this baby with railroad monies in 2 years!!  hell, two bath tubs were carved out of pieces of marble, that must have taken 2 years.  Can you imagine how many laborers they must of employed to have it completed in 2 years?  The story goes that the those marble tubs had to have many fills of hot water before the marble was warm enough for the 'precious bathers'.  

and this veranda ceiling is mosaic tiles that were hand set - it is so unbelievable - and done in two years. 

a view of the back yard - HA.

And last but not least, is a small, downtown church called St Mary’s Catholic Church where John F. Kennedy wed Jacqueline Bouvier.