The last stop on our New England road trip was Rhode Island. If you missed our other travel diaries, we also visited Vermont and Lake George, Portland, and Boston.
We left Boston after a full day of exploring and headed to Providence. We had grand plans of going out to a fancy dinner but were so tired we opted for the Panera across the street from our hotel and a dessert of cannolis from Mike’s Pastry in our hotel room.
The next day, feeling refreshed and ready to hit the ground running, we started our day with brunch at The Grange in Providence. I loved this place so much. The menu is vegetarian and the decor had us feeling like we were eating in a rustic Anthropologie.
I had the Tex-Mex omelet, which was probably the best omelet I’ve ever ordered. Must re-create that at home soon.
Shelby ordered the “chicken and waffles” (it was seitan instead of chicken). I had a few bites and it was yummy!
After brunch, we loaded back up in the car and headed down to Newport. This was the part of the trip Shelby and I were probably least excited for, and the part of the trip our Mom was looking forward to most, ha ha.
Our first stop in Newport was to pay a visit to the “summer cottages” aka mega mansions that acted as the summer houses for America’s wealthy in the early 20th century.
We visited The Breakers first, which is the grandest of all the “summer cottages” and was owned by the Vanderbilts.
We opted for the self-guided audio tour, which was very informative, and took you about an hour to complete.
The house was huge and very grand. It was very fun to walk through and pretend we were in the middle of Downton Abbey or something.
After touring The Breakers, we headed to the famous Cliff Walk.
This day was very sunny, which was a nice change from Portland and Boston, but is was very cold and VERY windy, which made walking along a cliff by the ocean not ideal. The part of the Cliff Walk we saw though was very beautiful, and in better weather, it would have been fun to walk along it more.
Look at those twinsies! 🙂
Our next stop was The Elms, home of Edward Berwind of coal mining fortune. This home was much smaller than The Breakers, and way less people were touring it. At times, we felt like we had the entire house to ourselves it it was easy to imagine what it was like to live there.
The ballroom was my favorite room in this house. Just imagine all the parties that were held in this room!
So much copper love in this kitchen!
After our second tour, we walked through downtown Newport and popped into a few of the shops. Farmaesthetics was our favorite and is a must stop if you’re into natural beauty products.
We stopped into Empire Tea & Coffee and grabbed lattes for the road before heading back to NYC.
And that concludes our New England road trip! I was a jam packed few days, and we covered a lot of ground, but such a blast! We might just have to make it an annual thing!
-Ash xx