Departed from Heather and Johns' New Canaan home and drove by their last house a large Farm House. Then headed to a recommended coffee shop for Jeff. Luckily for Sheila, John and Alexandra were able to meet us with her left behind bag. Coffee, hot coco and muffins to go and with the rain picking up we headed up the Merritt Parkway to Newport, RI.
On the way we peeled off through Old Saybrook, CT and down to Fenwick where we found Katherine Hepburn's old house along the shore where Jeff used to spend time with his grandparents.
We continued our trek up the coast to New Port, RI with the rain gathering its strength. The group decided to first have lunch and then tour the Newport sites. John recommended a place on the Bowen Warf, 22 Bowen Wine Bar and Grille. Great choice by John for sure. Clam Chowder and Lobster Bisque to start and then grouper sandwich and lobster roll lunches.
From the pier we grabbed the car and started touring the area. There is a lot of old mansions along the SE side of the Newport (technically an island). These homes all were huge and behind walls and tree/hedge lines that did obscure getting a great view from the car. This would be a great walk if no rain. The Breakers is a Vanderbilt home that was just massive. It was obvious just the sheer size would keep anyone from owning as maintaining the structure alone would be so expensive (Marble House, The Elms, Rosecraft, Breakers, and others).
We then traveled around the south side and viewed large homes and rocky shoreline views. Kent searched on Zillow and most homes we saw were in the $2-3 million range with the larger getting up to $10m. plus.
Castle Hill Lighthouse was our next stop where we ventured to see the lighthouse. A cruise ship was off in the distance and we saw one up close as well. There was also the Castle Hill Lodge on the point that looked fancy and was hosting a wedding.
From there we toured around taking in the various estates and roadways around the area. Gassed up the car with drinks and potty breaks. Off to Boston as our next destination. There were quite a few vineyards and we did stop at one that ended up being pretty well closed with wedding and rain. Oh well we tried.
Janie wanted to capture all the state welcome signs, but due to weather and camera readiness did not get them all.
Being night time and rainy on our approach to Boston you really just could see the city skyline clearly. We elected to grab a drink at Cheers on Beacon Street, which turned into dinner.
After a nice dinner of Nachos and (split) Burgers we packed up and headed north to the Doubletree Northshore of Boston. Check in and closed out the evening reading and looking at options for the next day's trip to Portland Maine.
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