Newport, Rhode Island

Michael is really on this cruise. He has not reported on anything yet, but is finally here:

I guess what I will remember most about Newport is BIG, BIG, BIG homes, up to seventy rooms (The Astor home), which they like to call summer cottages, and OLD, OLD, OLD everything. I had a very fun day. I went ashore briefly this morning just to look around the historic village, which is mostly shops, restaurants and marinas. There were hundreds of sailboats tied up to mooring buoys.

In the afternoon I escorted a tour to the Vanderbilt’s Marble House, envisioned by Alva Vanderbilt as her “temple to the arts” in America. Alva, it turns out, is much better known for her work on behalf of woman’s suffrage then she is for the arts. We started with a tour along Ten Mile Drive, past carefully restored historic buildings and palatial “cottages,” ending up at the Marble House build by William K. and Alva Vanderbilt, and featuring more than 500,000 square feet of white marble. It was considered one of the most palatial estates in Newport, and is decorated with Louis XIV and XV furnishings which were original to the house.

After touring the home, we crossed the lawn to Alva’s Tea House. This was built in 1913 and is the country’s only example of a classic 12th century Southern Sung Chinese Temple. The tea, the scones, the crumpets and the sandwiches were yummy. The only trivia I picked up today was that while most of the Vanderbilt’s are dead and buried, one still exists, in the form of CNN’s Anderson Cooper, son of Gloria Vanderbilt.

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I’m back with the history lesson. Rhode Island was founded in 1639 by religious dissenters from Massachusetts. Newport has a natural harbor so it became busy with shipping, fishing, and famous for making rum, which was traded in Africa for slaves. The slaves were then transported to the West Indies and swapped for molasses, which was used to make the rum. This was known as the “Triangular Trade.”

In the late 1800s, Newport became a playground for the rich and famous. Opulent mansions were built on huge estates, one more grand than the next. This one upmanship produced some incredible “summer cottages” such as Michael described above. The height of “high society” and the idle rich lasted until the great depression. With the natural harbor, yachting became a big pastime and became home to the America’s Cup Race.

My tour was a brief drive along Ten Mile Drive, which is famous for its rugged coast and craggy bays. We saw the McMansions, gated estates hidden behind tall hedges and trees. All of these estates are named: Rose Cliff, The Breakers, and Marble House just to name a few. We drove around the old town where we drove us by the oldest tavern in the country (The White Horse Tavern, 1673), the oldest library in the country, the second oldest golf course and the oldest Synagogue in the country.

The weather was glorious – how did we get so lucky? After a little shopping and walking around the village, I was starting to hurt and was dragging fanny; I was carrying the ship’s backpack (with emergency supplies), my polar fleece jacket, the camera, and my purchases (Coldwater Creek, oh yeah!) – all on cobblestone streets. This was probably not the best or smartest thing to do (carry all this weight) at this particular time in my life. So I headed back to the tender to take a short cruise back to the anchored Symphony.

Back on board ship the only interesting thing that happened was when I was gently shoved out of the way of a moaning and screaming woman that was being carried off the ship on a stretcher. They had to load her on the tender for transport to shore. I’ll bet whatever she had (I never did find out what happened to her) was going to be aggravated by the bumpy ride to the pier. Someone was following her with a suitcase, so whatever it was, it must have been serious. Looks like her cruise is over.