Day 12 - Sep 10, 2014 Last updated: 9/21/14 5:00pm PT
We are still in Portsmouth, NH in the morning, and we visited the Strawberry Banke Museum, an entire neighborhood of buildings preserved where they originally stood (only 4 houses were moved from elsewhere, 32 are on their original sites). The oldest house was built in 1695 (the dark brown one below). The rest are from the 18th and 19th centuries. Obviously, they are restored, although some looked more restored than others. Each building that was open to the public had either a docent, who would explain the history of the building and point out interesting features, or a character actor pretending to be living in the era of the house – which I find creepy.
After leaving Portsmouth, we drove down the coast and stopped in Hampton Beach, NH. This is a boardwalk/summer resort type of town. The season was over for the year, the town was dead, so we just stopped long enough to take a picture.
Next stop was Salem, MA, home of the famous witch trials. We did not go to any of the witch museums. We went to the Salem History Museum, located in the old Town Hall building (from 1817). This had more than just the history of the witch trials and wasn’t sensationalized.
Last stop for the day was in Newport, RI. We had attempted to visit here in 2001 and failed, but now we have succeeded. There are very large (and I mean VERY LARGE) mansions on the coast. The largest were built in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. The most famous is probably The Breakers, built in 1895 and is a 70 room summer estate of the Vanderbilts. Here we are standing in front of The Breakers. We did not go inside.
We also walked a little way on the Cliff Walk, a public path between the houses and the water.
