Newport and Cape Cod

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More Newport

	Newport is on Rhode Island, boasting the least land and the longest name. It is actually short for the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Here, the vast New England textile industry was launched, but if this picture of the Robert and Joseph Rogers house is anything top go off, building was not top of the early colonial skills.		The Touro Synagogue was erected in the year 5603. Yep, that's right, the oldest Jewish place of worship house in the US of A. Try 1773 for a calendar that non Jewish people can understand. Being currently restored, methinks.
The Newport Artillery Company building (founded in 1741) contains uniforms worn by Field Marshall Montgomery and Prince Phillip, amongst others.		and here is a close up of the splendid crest.
		some interesting colour schemes? A touch of the Vanderbilt's wealth hinted at here. More of him, later!
Gortex, Gannex and Great Britain?			We are now on the 'big house' walk along Belle Vue Avenue leading to Ocean Drive. The houses here are some of the most grand mansions of the 'Gilded Age'. Clues are all around as to why...
	More chrome than gilt, but still flying the stars and stripes. We only fly national flags on big occasions; like football matches.	I spotted this sign down on the waterfront. Party Ice? Block Ice? Icebergs?
This is the 'Big One'. Superlatives run into each other when you try to describe The Breakers.		Designed as a summer cottage for use just two months each year by the Vanderbilt family. Cornelius Vanderbilt II, actually. Hundreds of craftsmen from Europe were brought over to (amongst other things) reconstruct the grand salon (built in France) It is huge and opulent in every sense of the word (s)
	The gates kind of tell you that this is going to be a bit 'posh'. 46 bedrooms and 40 staff to keep it going during those summer months.		We join the queue and read the guide book: built in just two years using 2000 craftsmen from Europe working 24 hours a day in two 12 hour shifts. It is of brick and steel frame clad in thin stone. No wood was used after fire had destroyed the first building on the site.
Heated by hot air via an underground tunnel from the boiler house big enough for a horse and carriage to drive through. Thus was another possible fire source removed from the Vanderbilt's summer cottage.		It cost $6 million dollars to build; now estimated at $500 million to rebuild. Bill Gates, by comparison is worth $60 billion. That's a helluva lot of Windows. There's a hinge on the door as we wait to enter. No more pics allowed...
	...except when we are looking out from one of the marble clad balconies.		Later we wander around the gardens which, to be fair, are a bit mundane after the interior.
There's the balcony seen from a different perspective. Shall we say that of one of the below stairs staff! And they say we British are class ridden!