Roadtrip New England - New Haven and Newport
Trip Start
Jan 18, 2006
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53
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Trip End
Dec 2006
New Haven,
Connecticut,
United States
Sunday, July 2, 2006
As we drove into each state, we were welcomed with an impressive Vistors Centre and picnic area, allowing us to pick up the much needed road maps and hotel discount vouchers, which were to come in very very handy over the week.
Our first stop in New England was the town of New Haven, the home of Yale University.
As we wandered around the town, we both thought that we could almost have been strolling around the University buildings of Cambridge
Around New England I
! We had a nice couple of hours walking around the town, visiting the Yale Centre for British Art, which housed some wonderful paintings including a few Turners and an interesting collection on Shakespear.
Other than the University the main attraction of New Haven town is its central square green, it is over looked by three impressive churches and in the summer acts as an outside theatre for many musical productions and plays.
Back on the road we travelled along the coastal path and stopped next at the wealthy summer seaside resort town of Newport.
Well if you have the cash and want to live in and among posh mansions, then this is the place for you! Me and Chris were both in ore! Newport sits right on the seafront and is beautiful, picture perfect houses and amazing gardens.
We headed, as everyone does, to Bellevue Avenue which is home to some very large mansions. These are the homes to the filthy rich
Around New England II
! A few of the properties are now in the hands of the state and are opened to the public to step inside and have a good nose!Knowing that Chris would never get me out of one of those places, we saved the money and just drove in and around the grounds of some of them ... pretending that maybe one day we would live in a home like that! (Chris just kept telling me that I would 'one day' be in one of those.... he told me that he'd get me a cleaning job!!! cheeky git... yeah right!!)
The mansion avenue stops at the edge of the sea at the well named 'Cliff Walk' a wonderful path leading right along the back of these spectacular homes along the cliffs above the sea.
The small town center of Newport lies on the harbour front, it is over run with tourists, shops and restaurants but was a nice wander for a few hours.
We headed out to the Fort Adams State Park for lunch and admired the view whilst feasting on our packed goodies!
We learnt to love Wal-Mart, yes sad as it is!
Around New England III
! but this gargantuan beast of a store is where we bought all our food, keeping it in a large cool box in a vain attempt to keep it chilled. The US certainly know how to picnic, everywhere we stopped for lunch or dinner we would find picnic tables and be surrounded by families who had bought everything for a day at the park ... not including the kitchen sink, but almost!We felt a little humble with our tins of tuna, bag of mixed salad and yogurts!!
We have both really loved living each day, not knowing where we were going to be stopping, or seeing or where indeed we would be staying the night.
The freedom of being on the road is fantastic and we feel like we are experiencing a more real America and not just the stuff in the glossy magazines! Well at least until we get to New York anyway!!
