Newport/Rhode Island offers - besides its beautiful location at the Atlantic ocean - a collection of some of the finest houses ( or should I say palaces) one can find in the USA. In the 19th century several wealthy families of the East Coast - like the Vanderbilts - decided to build their "summer cottages" ( that's how they called it) along the pictoresque shoreline of Newport. They used only the best materials they could get, employing sometimes hundreds of artists from Europe to build these impressive examples of american architure.