Ah, the weekend that David and I had been waiting for all winter had finally arrived! We were off for an entire weekend to Newport, Rhode Island… and no kids were coming. I had been to Newport to photograph a wedding a couple of years ago and he had been yearrrrs ago to the first X-Games, but that was the extent of our tenure in this small ocean-side town. We were pretty excited to do some exploring and maybe some sleeping in. (NOTE: When a baby and a six-year-old habitually wake at 7:00am, you will continue to wake at 7:00am for the rest of your life, vacation or not.)
We stayed at the lovely Harborside Inn which included a room with a balcony and a view of the water. It was a beautiful room with a cozy bed.
We didn’t waste much time while we were in Newport. We slept in our room and then we were basically out adventuring the entire time. We arrived pretty late on Friday night after running kids all over the place and dropping them off with grandparents and then we sat in a small amount of traffic, and heaven-forbid, we had to stop and eat on the way… so it wasn’t until about 10pm when we finally pulled into Christie’s Landing…
The next day, we woke up, got ready, ate breakfast and then headed out to Fort Adams (which we could see from downstairs at our table in the breakfast room and from our balcony in our room). Fort Adams is an old fort built back in the 1800’s and you can only get inside if you take a guided tour… At first we were kinda bummed because we like to take our time exploring, but if you enjoy this sort of thing, you will love this tour. It was very cool. And, our guide was The. Best. He sort of reminded me of a dude from Jersey and had a great roughness about him and a wealth of knowledge with some great little stories to go along with the historical highlights. He was both educational and amusing to listen to and that man walked on his toes and faster than anyone I have ever seen. I have been accused of being a fast walker but this guy put us all to shame! He was patient with us slowing down the pace and, honestly, I never really felt rushed. I wish I remembered his name, because it would be worth requesting him specifically.
Our first stop was in the living quarters and was by far my favorite part of the entire tour. They have been working on restorations and it was kind of neat to try to imagine living in these small spaces with your entire family….
One amusing fact about this historical fort is that it was coined the name “Country Club of the United States Army” because these guys were so bored in the early 1900’s that they built a movie theater, bowling alley, shooting range and even made a baseball diamond and football field in the middle.
A lot of the areas are fenced off to keep people out, but we were able to go into a small section of what was made into a shooting range:
The boiler was an interesting feature that is still standing – but they were all behind fences so they were difficult to photograph: 
The last part of the tour was spent walking through tunnels (and I managed to pick up two ticks that David noticed on my shoe (!!!!) thankfully, before they made it up further on my legs!).
The last part of the journey was with flashlights! OMG, so scary! We made it out alive, though… and it was actually a lot of fun and it wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be…. it definitely helped having 10 other people with us. Crazy fact: The men stationed here had to learn how to manuever through these tunnels in complete darkness. NO. Just no. These tunnels were “listening” tunnels where they would literally go in and listen for the enemy trying to dig through.
After our tour we took a spin along the coast and searched for sea glass in the rocky shoreline.
Then, we needed food before our next adventure. We stopped in at the Speakeasy Bar & Grill in downtown Newport as their veggie burger sounded amazing… oh, and it was scrumptious.
Next! Then we walked UP the hill and finally back down towards the water to Newport’s Cliff Walk! This was an all-afternoon walk for us. We walked almost the entire length of it. The first part was easy, well paved and friendly for everyone of all ages and abilities. Eventually, it became rockier and then climbing on the rocks became the norm. Just fair warning.
As we headed back we hit up Bellevue and checked out all of the mansions along the way. Some of these “houses” were out of control in size and grandeur. Wow. Just wow. I can’t imagine having that kind of money to build something of that magnitude just to live in it. I wouldn’t want to be the one to keep it clean, either.
You can get passes to visit many of the Bellevue Mansions – we didn’t have time and were hoping to do one or two of them on Sunday but time wasn’t in our favor. You can read more about the Bellevue Mansions and book tickets via this website. It has some fascinating history about many of the homes, too.
We got back, washed off the sunblock and went to dinner over at Lucia’s on Thames Street. It was delicious. I decided to torture myself with more Arrabiata sauce – I don’t even like spicy food, but for whatever reason, if I see this on a menu, I just have to order it. Silly.
All in all it was a fantastic weekend away – Sunday was spent packing up and walking through a few more shops that we didn’t have time to hit on Saturday. I got a great rope bracelet from Lemon & Line on Thames Street. It’s pink and it’s pretty. The drive back was much faster and it included a stop at Rita’s Italian Ice in Warwick. (We stopped on the way down, too, because there aren’t any Rita’s in Maine!) We were both happy, though, to get back home, see the kids and sleep in our own bed.