In the Gilded Age

[cornerofmadness]

I spent the entire morning in the gilded age. I went to the Breakers first figuring it’s the best known and most likely to be crowded. I was right. Even at 930 it was pretty packed but it was amazing. I can see why Mark Twain coined the term gilded age. Today it’s been romantacized but he meant it as a scathing indictment of how wasteful these people were. He had a point especially when you consider the Vanderbilts spent less than six weeks a year here. I literally could spend six months here and still not see every embellishment. One room has walls gilted not with gold but with platnium.

From there I wen to Marble house. It’s on par with the Breakers and was owned by Alva Vanderbilt. I should read more on her. She was something (I knew that before I got here, it’s one of the reason I wanted to see this home), votes for women, divorcing and so much more. The last house was Chateau su Mer which was older than the rest and not as insanely embellished (not that it was plain either) It was in the English aesthetic style and had a live guide vs the self guided ipads all the others had. (after putting up with 15 people, half of whom were tweens who didn’t want to be there I preferred the latter).

After seeing the Black Pearl is renowned for its clam chowder, I went back and got that and a seafood crepe full of shrimp and scallops. Delightful. Less delightful, it was raining. So I decided to go to the beach anyhow. Hey it was easy to find on street parking. I walked around for an hour. This one had very few shells and one of the big clam shells I picked up still had a clam in it (sorry buddy). I put him back. The tide looked red because of all this seaweed floating in it. There was a small carousel there too.

I headed back to mansion row to go on the cliffwalk. I’m glad I did. I went via Salve Regina Uni which had a paved part of the walk. It was very nice. Also on their campus I found what I thought was little libraries but were rather shadow boxes made by students containing poetry (one was creepy) called poetry in the wild. I thought that was a nice idea.

Dinner was at the highly rated Brick Alley pub which was insanely crowded. I had a storm brewery amber ale (pretty good) and even more scallops, this time in wine butter and bread crumbs, delicious (but the butter made me sick) Took another try at the casino. I won a few small bonuses at the star gate machines again but then tried new machines and lost.

Time to pack and hope the storm doesn’t hit tomorrow like it might. The ghost hunt still has to wait until I have time.