A Day in Newport Rhode Island

My husband unexpectedly took last Monday off from work so we decided to spend the day in Newport as a family.  The weather was just perfect!  Sunny skies and cool fall breezes.

We parked in town, walked around for a bit and had some lunch.

"diving into the waves" sculpture 

We then headed over to The Breakers Mansion and took a tour.

This is the "summer cottage" of Cornelius Vanderbilt and his family (Older brother to William Vanderbilt who built The Marble house we toured earlier this summer).

This house has 70 rooms, 300 windows and is a whopping 138,300 square feet.  They employed 40 servants with 33 servant bedrooms on the third floor.

With so much ornamentation; literal gold leafing and platinum on the walls, marble mosaics and Tiffany lamps it's easy to see why this was called the gilded age.

Stained glass ceiling above the grand staircase 

Fountain tucked under the grand staircase

This crystal chandelier was wired for use with gas or electric lights (electric lights were the newest invention
and were not that reliable)

Mosaic walls and floors were found throughout the house

These cherubs adorn one of the doors and were custom designed; the cherub on the left has a train and the one on the right a railroad spike 

The master bathroom; piped to accommodate hot and cold running fresh and salt water 

The bedrooms and the upper floor of the house were much less ornate.  Though Mrs. Vanderbilt did have 4 closets.
This was to accommodate the 7 changes of clothes that one would typically go through in a typical Newport Day 

The kitchen was enormous! 

After we finished the tour we headed out to the cliff walk and walked along the ocean front.

The ocean side of Marble House 

Pretty grand lawn; isn't it?

This is why it's called the cliff walk 

One of the buildings belonging to Salve Regina University 

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