CAMERA READY

Originally published in The Australian newspaper, October 2010.

Walking down gently sloping William Street in lovely, leafy Newport, Rhode Island, one Friday afternoon my wife Sally and I pass a beautiful gothic stone church that has graced the corner since 1828. It is a late October day, a clear blue sky above us and the dazzling, spectacular colours of New England's famed autumn foliage all around us. "Let's get a picture!" I say to Sally.

"Another one?" Newport is very small and very picturesque, and although we've only been in town for about 15 minutes I've already made Sally pose more than 30 times in front of trees, houses and ye olde shoppes of varying degrees of comely quaintness. (Such is the peculiar pulchritudinousness of the town that even the local Dunkin' Donuts outlet has something oddly photogenic about it.) I point to a wooden plaque outside the church entrance and as she reads it, my wife's resistance melts. For it was on this very spot that John F. Kennedy de-Bouviered Jacqueline on September 12, 1953.

If proof were required that Newport is a longstanding playground for the rich and fabulous, then it can be found on this, and just about every other, corner of the town. Sally dutifully poses; I snap and briefly consider rushing inside and renewing our vows, Camelot-style.

With an area of just more than 3000 square kilometres, Rhode Island is the smallest state in the US and it is substantially dwarfed by at least a few Australian sheep stations. It's also worth noting that Rhode Island is not an island but does feature dozens of beautiful islets, bays and peninsulas along the Atlantic coastline.

Which makes Newport, perched at the southern tip of Little Rhody, an ideal home for the world's most famous yacht race, the America's Cup. Like many other seaside towns, Newport's commercial centre along Thames Street features an abundance of antiques shops, seafood restaurants, ice-cream parlours, scrimshaw (carved whalebone or whale ivory), bad art from bad local artists and souvenir shops. If you require a sweatshirt with Newport, RI, emblazoned across the front, this is where to visit. Somehow, though, it all manages to be quite lovely: there are no garish neon lights, few chain stores, lots of spired churches and plenty of cosy bars, such as the Whitehorse Tavern, which has been slaking summer thirsts since 1673.

Several streets are cobblestoned and the many colonial-era buildings throughout the town have been superbly restored. It is becoming increasingly difficult not to photograph everything. The same applies to our magnificent hotel, the Chanler, located just steps away from Newport's premier tourist attraction: the dozens of spectacular Gilded Age mansions dotted along Cliff Walk, a 6 kilometre bluff overlooking Easton's Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.

Staying at the Chanler is the best way of experiencing sumptuous mansion life without buying one. Originally built as the summer home of a New York congressman, the three-storey, 20-room French Victorian spread is set on 2 hectares of manicured gardens and sloping lawns. It is unquestionably the best luxury hotel in the state. Exquisite touches and furnishings include voluptuous beds with down comforters and Fili d'oro linens. Floors are panelled in antique oak or chestnut; walls highlighted with hand-painted, motif detailing; spacious decks and patios provide stunning ocean or garden views.

From this vantage point it's not hard to see why Newport has attracted the wealthy and pre-eminent for so long. Perhaps the wealthiest and most pre-eminent of the original summer crowd were the Vanderbilts, whose patriarch, Cornelius, amassed an almost inconceivably vast fortune in shipping and railroads. The Vanderbilt "cottage", the Breakers, is the largest and most popular of 11 historic properties open to visitors. Somewhat reluctantly - because it feels so wrong to have to shell out $20 to a family of such means, even if they don't own it any more and are largely dead - Sally and I take the tour.

But first we read the warnings: No photographs. No touching. No detours. No unauthorised admiring of furniture and-or fittings. Guided by a young automaton whose strenuous adherence to a rote script suggests, not so much learning as brain-washing, we and a dozen other extreme real estate fans shuffle slack-jawed through the 70-room Italian renaissance extravaganza.

"The Great Hall rises fifty feet or two entire storeys to provide a majestic welcome to all visitors to the Breakers past and present. It is a perfect square. Are there any questions?" our robot guide concludes at the first stop.

Somebody asks how much The Breakers cost to build. "The Breakers cost $US10million to build ... a huge sum of money in 1895 ... are there any further questions? No? All righty, then, let's move on as a group into Mrs Vanderbilt's bedroom."

To liven things up a little, I ask if Mrs Vanderbilt would be ready to receive so many visitors at once. "Unfortunately Mrs Vanderbilt passed away in 1934 ... are there any further questions of a serious nature?"

Thus we tour the bedrooms, music room, dining room, morning room, billiard room, bathrooms, guestrooms, hallways and stairways of the palatial getaway. Ornately carved archways are pointed out and respectfully admired. The cost and provenance of crystal chandeliers hanging beneath stunning arched ceilings prompt appropriate nods of respectful awe. The weight of the chairs in the dining room - "almost 100 pounds each!" - is stated with quiet, respectful solemnity.

The salt-water taps in Mrs V's cottage-size bathroom are explained as a late-19th century health fad; as a group, we are respectfully impressed. No photographs are taken. Nothing is touched. Outrageously expensive details such as silk wallpaper and solid gold pets (an exaggeration, I admit, but only a minor one) are admired as I try to suppress troubling thoughts about my extreme lack of extreme wealth. The Vanderbilt beds help: they are very small and lumpy, and given how much I like sleeping, I decide I'd rather be poor now than rich then. I also decide to lift the ban on photographing my own bed back home.

To dine in the manner of the rich, of past and present, there is no better destination in Newport than Spiced Pear, a Wine Spectator Award of Excellence-winning restaurant conveniently located (for Sally and me, at least) at the Chanler. Spiced Pear specialises in regional gourmet cuisine, its seasonally inspired menu offering a selection of fresh seafood, steaks and arresting, adventurous specialty dishes made from local ingredients. The Mediterranean sea bass with asparagus nori and ponzu glaze remains one of the best tasting and best looking plates placed in front of me. Before I eat it, I take a picture.

It is difficult to leave Newport, emotionally and literally; a storm blanketing the entire region whips up 77km/h winds and dumps 9cm of rain in 12 hours. Across the state, powerlines and trees fall; highways are littered with stalled and crashed cars. Ordinarily, the 57km drive north from Newport to Providence should take a little less than an hour; we do it in close to three.

Seen through a heavy gauze of rain, downtown Providence appears to have frozen in time in the middle of the 18th century, then enjoyed a final, sudden spurt of development in the late 1920s. Most of the attractive residential and commercial buildings are made of wood; the tallest brick structure, the Bank of America Tower, built in 1927, peaks at 130 metres. While not nearly as photogenic as Newport (although maybe the weather is to blame), the small, pleasant state capital is kept lively by the large student population attending the city's renowned universities and colleges, including Brown, the Rhode Island School of Design and Johnson&Wales.

The last mentioned university is home to an impressive culinary museum and so, partly to escape the ceaseless downpour and partly to whet our appetite for the city's thriving restaurant culture, Sally and I go along. (It is either this or Providence Place Mall.) Johnson&Wales's galleries contain more than 500,000 items of kitchenalia and gastronomic curiosity that trace everything from the evolution of the lemon juicer to the development of presidential menus, known as the History of the First Stomach (no kidding).

"Take a picture of that Victorian grape-slicer," Sally urges, standing in front of a cluttered vitrine. Thinking she is kidding, I laugh. Somewhat presidentially, she isn't.

Of considerably more interest to me is a large exposition devoted to that venerable expander of the American waistline, the roadside diner, a Providence institution since 1872. As we leave the display, a sign near the exit expresses the hope that visitors will be "inspired to go out and eat in the remaining classic diners of New England".

We are so inspired, and fortunately there remains a perfect example in Pawtucket, just outside Providence. The food at the Modern Diner at 364 East Ave isn't that great - unwisely I order corned beef hash and eggs, an alarmingly yellow and purple dish that reached its popular peak in about 1948 and should not have made it to the 21st century - but the friendly atmosphere of busy waitresses, laughter and sizzling grease is first class. Because it's a converted locomotive engine, the diner also looks fantastic, even when it's raining.

If you ask me, that goes for the rest of the state, too. Pay Little Rhody a visit sometime, and bring a camera. You won't be sorry.

www.thechanler.com