Newport, RI

Thomas had a couple of days off due to the win against Detroit last Thursday, so we decided to do more exploring around New England. We keep hearing about Newport, Rhode Island, so we wandered that way yesterday. It was such a neat place and happens to be where the Vanderbilt's (and other millionaires) used to have their summer "cottages," aka there are tons of huge mansions all on one long street. Here is one such "cottage":

The great thing about the mansions is that they're all built along one street that overlooks the ocean, so there is this cool "Cliff Walk" that is a 3 mile walk between the ocean and the mansions. 

 Along parts of the Cliff Walk

You can also tour the inside of these homes, which we hesitated about doing because A. it costs money and B. according to me, "who wants to see all of that crazy early 1900's decor anyway?" Well, thank goodness we listened to Thomas and not Marge, because the house tour was SO WORTH IT! You get to listen to headphones and historians tell you about each room of the house. It was really cool and we were like little kids wearing our headphones and deciding which parts we wanted to listen to etc. Thomas was very insistent about only listening to the same tracks and listening simultaneously. It was all very entertaining and I'm sure other folks on the tour were thinking....who knows what.

We only got to go into the Marble House, but there are so many others that we can't wait to go back and tour.{Side note: the Vanderbilt's dropped $11 of their $70 million on the Marble House. And lived there 3 months out of the year.} Only some of the homes are on the Christmas tour, but we've heard that going to Newport in the summer is unbeatable, and all of the houses are available to tour. So come visit and you too can wear these snazzy headphones and hear about the insane daily life of the Vanderbilt's!