Newport is the most extravagant address in American history: a small Rhode Island city where the very rich of the Gilded Age built summer "cottages" — in reality, palaces that make the châteaux of the Loire look modest. The Vanderbilts, the Astors, the Belmonts, and their set competed to see who could spend most lavishly along Bellevue Avenue, and the result is the most concentrated display of Gilded Age architecture in America. The Breakers, built for Cornelius Vanderbilt II in 1895, is the centerpiece: 70 rooms, a staff of 40, and a budget that would translate to hundreds of millions of dollars today. You can tour all of it for the price of a National Trust ticket.
But Newport is far older than the mansions. It was founded in 1639 and was, for much of the colonial period, one of the largest and most prosperous towns in British North America — a hub of the Triangle Trade, the rum trade, and (shamefully) the slave trade. The Colonial Newport walking district around Washington Square, Touro Synagogue (1763, the oldest surviving Jewish house of worship in the United States), and Fort Adams on the harbor entrance represent a completely different Newport from the Bellevue Avenue show.
The harbor itself has always been the city's real engine. Newport was the center of American yacht racing for most of the 20th century, hosting the America's Cup from 1930 to 1983, and the International Tennis Hall of Fame on Bellevue Avenue marks the sport's American origins. Today the waterfront on Thames Street is very much alive with restaurants, bars, and working boats. Newport is easily done as a day trip from Providence, but the Bellevue Avenue mansions and the harbor together warrant at least one overnight.