The Newport Mansions are, of course, one of the most publicized of all the city's attractions. Most are open to the pubic and admission fees are reasonable. By far the best Mansion experience is that at the Astors' Beechwood where young professional actors, in costume portraying servants and family, show guests around the summer home of Caroline Astor who, with her diamond collection, the largest in the United States, set herself up as the Queen of American Society. One wonders why communism didn't make an appearance in Newport before it ever came to Russia. Those who might not find studying old buildings an active enough vacation can go on escorted walking tours or visit the several wineries in the area or take harbor cruises or yacht charters.
Daily ferries run to Block Island.
A hundred years of tennis is on display from Bill Tilden's many medals to the Renshaw Cup won by Don Budge as Wimbledon Singles Champion in 1937 and donated to the Hall of Fame in 2000 by his many friends. With more bed and breakfasts per square mile than anywhere else in the United States, Newport offers lots of hotel choices from the towering Hyatt Regency on Goat Island, where 80 percent of the 247 rooms have a water view, to the romantic Cliffside Inn on Seaview Avenue located just half a block from the Cliff Walk that traces three miles of Newport's captivating coastline. The Cliffside stages an elaborate Victorian afternoon tea that is worth the stay in itself. The art is different at Vanderbilt Hall, a mansion house hotel on Mary Street, a great downtown location for walking Newport's Colonial past. Every one of the 50 rooms is decorated differently and all the exquisitely matched furnishings were brought over from England.