Visit Newport

The sailing capital of the world and queen of summer resorts.

- Veena Mohan Adige

Newport is a city set on the Aquidneck Island in the New England state of Rhode Island in the United States. It is a beautiful city known for its mansions and the cultural happenings in bygone days. The mansions were still there when we went and some are open for public, who flock to see the beauty and the grandeur of those days.

The yacht-filled harbour of Newport hosted the America’s Cup, a renowned annual sailing regatta, for many years. The Gilded Age mansions lining Bellevue Avenue are its biggest attractions, some of which are now museums. From 1880s to 1914 dream houses were built along the ocean drive. The most famous is The Breakers, an 1895 mansion patterned after a Renaissance palace. All of them have awe-inspiring architecture, the like of which is found very rarely in any part of the world. These mansions were the summer houses of the Astors, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts and reflect their glorious lifestyles, their wealth and their artistic tastes.

My family and I went sightseeing there and stayed for a couple of days. We stayed in a beautiful original small mansion called the Anna Pell House which had three bedrooms but only one bathroom. The interiors were very well done and our hosts were gracious and hospitable. They gave us our own keys and a side entrance from where we could enter and exit without disturbing them.

This house was just a stone’s throw from the main road which had plenty of beautiful shops and eating places.

Rohit, my son-in-law, was practising for the New York marathon and he loved the 5.6kilometre Cliff Walk at Newport along the Atlantic Ocean. He got up early and ran there, finding that a lot of tourists were also interested in the Cliff Walk like him. Here he could get a wonderful view of the rocky coast and the mansions.