New England - Day 11 - The Cliff Walk

We headed out after breakfast to do the Cliff Walk which is a famous walk around the ocean side mansions here in Newport.  It was a mile long walk down to the start of the trail, a 3.5 mile walk on the trail itself, and then 2.5 miles back to our B&B.  Tiring, but absolutely worth every moment along the way.

On the way down to the trail we passed by the library which is just down from our B&B room and I had to take a pic of the roots of this tree growing around and through the fence.

 Then it was on down to the Cliff Walk which lived up to everything we'd ever read about it.

This is the backside of the Breakers which is the Vanderbilt place we visited while on tour from the ship last week.

This house is actually for sale right now for a mere $16.9M.  I'm trying to get Tina to go back to work and see if we can save up for it sometime soon.

Don't ask me why anybody would surf up here ... with the cold water and rocks everywhere, but they do.

So the pics and movie here were on a part of the trail destroyed by Sandy when it came through here 2 years ago.  I probably shouldn't give Tina a hard time about getting across it ... but I will anyway.  :)

It's hard to capture the beauty of the ocean waves breaking up against the rocks, but I figured a movie clip was the best chance.

And then we were to the end of the trail and onto the walk back to the middle of town. That trek was down the main "rich" house street of Newport.

I think I could settle for this nice little summer cottage.

After a late lunch and nap we went back to downtown and visited the International Tennis Hall of Fame.  With Tina having played tennis for the last 3 years she was psyched about visiting this place.

This was the original site of the US Open back from the late 1800's until the early 1900's.  It now has over 20 grass courts and still hosts a major tournament each year.

Until tomorrow, have a devil of a fun time!

New England - Day 10 - A Day in Cape Cod

Sunday morning was projected as being rainy so we decided to use that time to drive over to Cape Cod.  The first beach we stopped at was named Nauset Beach.  With as angry as the seas were, it didn't look like a very good beach day.

A bit farther up north we stopped at Fort Hill where we took a trail through some of the most beautiful marshy water ways around.

A side trail led us down to Red Maple Marsh, a large fresh water marsh accessed via a boardwalk trail.

The trail ended near a large whale bone welcoming entry way to a house built by a successful 1790's whaling boat captain.

 
We ended up driving to the very farthest northern edge of Cape Cod which is dominated by large expanses of dunes brought on centuries ago by over foresting of this end of the peninsula.

The Pilgrims actually first landed here on Cape Cod and after 6 weeks decided it would be better to go across the bay and onto Plymouth.  The monument you see in these next pictures is the tallest all granite monument in the United States and pays tribute to the Pilgrims landing on what is now Provincetown.

We had a late lunch in Provincetown and then strolled the wharf there before heading back to Newport.

Until tomorrow, watch out for falling bird poop!