Last weekend we took our belated summer weekend away which was suppose to happen in august, but got postponed thanks to lame hurricane Irene. With a beach holiday scheduled in late September in the north east new England area, I envisioned heavy jumpers, hot chocolates and umbrellas.
Prior leaving the weather forecast was rain for all four days with flood alert for the first day. Brilliant. Hurricane Irene would have faired better than this outlook. Luckily they got it totally wrong (surprise surprise) and we were blessed with unseasonably perfect weather.
So our trip began with Newport. I wasn't sure what to expect but was truly impressed. The old port is a thriving quaint tourist catered area filled with restaurants, bars and local shops. We got our first of many seafood fixes starting with lobster diabolo, a spaghetti dish with chilli hot seafood and lobster. It was amazing! The heat from the sauce gave me hallucinating effects. We also got our first salt water taffy fix too. Mmmmm
The other main attraction to Newport (note this is where Australia won the Americas cup back in the 80's) is the summer holiday cottages of the wealthy back in the late 1800's. We entered into just one "cottage". 70 rooms, ornate floor to ceiling, electricity, marble baths with 4 taps (cold water, hot water, fresh cold sea water, hot sea water) telephones etc... All the modern technology build into back in 1880's. This was the "cottage" of the vanderbilts. mrs Vanderbilt built her own home not too far for 11 million. 11 million back then! The wealth of this family was mind boggling. The mansion was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, close by Versailles.
After doing the cliff walk past all the mansions, we headed off to cape cod, where the Kennedy's took their annual summer holiday. There we spend days at the beach collecting shells, dug up a live clam, watching seals swim by and even taking a swim ourselves! The water was amazing. We visited all the small towns all the way up to provincetown. There were so many activities for kids too. We took Aurelia to a trout farm where she could feed the fish, watch chips being made at cape cod chip factory, watch glass blowers at a glass museum, apple picking at a farm and a petting zoo.
With so many other things to do, this is a trip we would do again.
