Weekend Getaway - Saturday - Newport, RI

We took a little southern New England getaway this weekend, and it was so nice! We very rarely travel other than to visit family, so it was really good to go do something fun.

On Saturday, we went to Newport, Rhode Island to see the Newport Mansions. Well, we went to see one mansion, anyway. There are several, but frankly, I figured one mansion's worth of finery would be enough for me, and I also didn't think Noah would stand up to too many tours. So we did two tours of the same house--one was the regular tour, through all the fancy rooms, and one was the "behind the scenes" tour, which showed all of the other areas of the house, like the kitchens and servants' quarters. It was really neat to see how the staff kept everything running. This house in particular had about 50 people on staff at any given time to take care of the 65,000 sq. ft. house along with the grounds. Can you imagine?! This was part of the Gilded Age, though. Several times, I felt like I was walking through Gatsby's house.

We were only allowed to take pictures of the ouside of the house, so that's all I have to show you. The house we saw was called The Elms, and you can see a few more pictures here.

Here we are at the front gate:

The front of the house

Walking through the grounds around to the back of the house:

The back of this amazing house. It was built to look like a mansion in France. Have you noticed how spectacular the weather is? Look at that blue sky! It was, hands down, THE perfect weather. Low 70's, low humidity, beautiful sunny days.

The best part of the grounds was this tree. Actually, it's a few trees. The branches spread in such a way that the inside is like a giant cave.

Here we are going inside:

Come have a look with us!

Oops, that's sideways. I'll try to fix it.

Here are Nathan and Noah, sitting on one of the branches. You have to click on the picture to truly appreciate Noah's grin.

Here we are on the roof. Check out a view of the water and boats behind us.

This is a picture I took on the roof of one of the statues and the sky. I know nothing about photography, but I thought this was kind of cool.

A nice fellow tourist saw us trying (unsuccessfully) to take a family picture on our own and offered to take it for us. This is a stone bench on the grounds at The Elms.