Newport, Rhode Island, may be a small city situated in the tiniest of America's 50 states but it's full of big attractions. Do you like sailing? Well then, Newport is not only America's yachting capital, but also the original home of the prestigious America's Cup yachting event. History? The city is packed with outstanding 18th-century colonial homes. Ostentatious wealth? America's most famous tycoons built the country's most lavish private residences along Newport's southern shore in the late 19th century - and you can still visit them today. Leisure? There are fine, sandy beaches, rocky shorelines ideal for fishing, and restaurants to suit every taste. Music? Newport hosts the most famous jazz and folk festivals in the USA. Sport? The city is the nation's tennis shrine.

Built on a New England island known to the Native Americans as Aquidneck, Newport was the original capital of Rhode Island, the state with the longest official name of any of them: The State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.

Although the capital later moved to Providence on the mainland, Newport's maritime and mercantile life continued to prosper, as did its reputation for tolerance and innovation. Roger Williams, the colony's 17th-century founder, ensured that Newport became a haven for religious minorities and dissenters seeking refuge from persecution both in Europe and the New World. Its Quaker Meeting House dates back to 1699, and Touro Synagogue, a classic work of Georgian architecture, is America's oldest synagogue.

But then the city claims many 'firsts', ranging from America's first church steeple to its oldest lending library and from Colony House on Washington Square - where Rhode Island became the first colony (in 1776) to declare its independence from Britain - to the nearby White Horse Tavern, the oldest operating tavern in America. Used by the state legislators 350 years ago, it's still serving good food and drink.

Newport became a major focal point again in the late 19th century, this time as the playground of the rich and famous. Wealthy Southerners led the way by escaping here from their stifling summers to enjoy Newport's cool Atlantic breezes. Then New York's industrial magnates, such as the Astors and the Vanderbilts, followed suit, building lavish waterfront mansions known as 'cottages', which transformed Newport into the most fashionable and ostentatious resort of its day. The steamboat journey from New York to Newport conveniently took just one day, and Mark Twain called the period "the Gilded Age".

There were scores of these massive 'cottages' (rather like calling Balmoral 'a bungalow'), which were used for opulent parties during the 'season', which lasted only a few weeks of the year until the First World War, the Great Crash and the introduction of income tax affected the fortunes of their owners. Fortunately for visitors, the Newport Preservation Society now owns 11 of the surviving mansions, which you can tour.

A STROLL BACK INTO THE GILDED AGE
Not far from the harbour, I walked along wide and handsome Bellevue Avenue to view some eight of these mansions. So impressive was the scene that I was surprised that the street wasn't paved with gold! It's no wonder that High Society, the classic film of privileged lifestyle starring Grace Kelly, Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra, was set in Newport.

My first stop was Kingscote, the oldest 'cottage'. It has a Gothic Revival exterior but inside the rooms are filled with Chinese porcelain, Venetian paintings, William Morris wallpaper, Siena marble and a dining-room wall made of Tiffany glass tiles. This mix of styles was very popular with the tycoons, who packed their properties with the most expensive art and materials they could find from all over the world.

My next stop was the Elms estate, owned by Edward Berwind, a millionaire coal magnate. He wanted his mansion to be a version of an 18th-century French chateau, and that's what he got, complete with a huge Louis XV ballroom, a towering marble staircase, bronze statues, Chippendale furniture and a magnificent ten-acre garden. Berwind even constructed his own private underground railway so that coal could be transported to the basement without any dust and dirt touching the rest of his palatial pad.

The most ingenious tour is at the Astors' mansion, Beechwood, where a group of costumed actors playing the roles of the Astor family and their late 19th-century domestic staff welcome you as house guests. Female visitors are invited to discover the art of flirtation, using the secret language of the fan. They are also reminded that 19th-century etiquette would require them to play with their food and never to clear their plate. At the end of the tour you are likely to be offered a strawberry tea or invited to join in a game of croquet on the lawn.

Mrs Astor was famous for the parties she regularly held for the social crème de la crème, known in her day as 'the 400', reputedly because that was the maximum number the Astors could fit into their ballroom.

CAMELS ON THE LAWN, TENNIS IN THE GRASS
One of my favourite summer cottages is Rough Point, tobacco heiress Doris Duke's spectacular mansion, which overlooks the ocean at the southern tip of the island. Known in her youth as the "million-dollar baby", childless Ms Duke became a generous philanthropist and a great collector, particularly for Rough Point, the favourite of her five homes. A Renoir hangs in her bedroom, and other works of fine art, including a Gainsborough, van Dyck and Sir Joshua Reynolds, are found in other rooms, along with Renaissance furniture, ceramics and medieval tapestries. A great animal lover, she even kept camels on her lawn.

The most extravagant mansion in Newport is The Breakers, shipping and railroad tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt II's 70-room Italian Renaissance palace overlooking the Atlantic. I gasped at the rare French and Italian marble, the mosaics, painted ceilings, Baccarat chandeliers and gilded panelling. Mr Vanderbilt certainly knew how to impress his guests: the two-storey dining-room is larger than most of Newport's ballrooms and the baths had four taps so that guests could select hot and cold fresh rainwater or healthy salt water pumped up from the ocean.

The most economical way of visiting the mansions is with a Gilded Age Experience ticket, which allows you to tour five mansions for $31. If you feel energetic, or just want to view the mansions and gardens for free from outside, take a stroll along the 3½-mile Cliff Walk that runs between the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the mansions on the other.

Whether you're an enthusiastic tennis fan or just watch the Wimbledon finals, don't miss Newport's International Tennis Hall of Fame, the largest tennis museum in the world. It's housed in the Newport Casino, not a gambling establishment but a stylish Victorian-era building, which was, at the height of the Gilded Age, the most exclusive social and sporting club on the east coast of the USA.

Its modest entrance leads you to the grass courts where the first US tennis tournament championships were held in 1881. You can pretend to be Pete Sampras or Steffi Graff between May and September, when visitors are allowed to play on most of the 13 lush courts. Or you can just enjoy the museum's unique collection of tennis memorabilia, interactive exhibits, dynamic videos and trophies. (More than 170 great players have been inducted into its Hall of Fame, from Fred Perry to John McEnroe.)

JAZZ - AND FOLK - ON A SUMMER'S DAY
Every August, Newport stages two of America's finest open-air music festivals in one of the most dramatic sites I have seen - Fort Adams State Park, overlooking Narragansett Bay and Newport Harbor. The huge fort, built in the 19th century to protect the north-eastern USA from invaders, was America's largest coastal fortification until the military stopped using it in 1950. Today, you can tour the officers' quarters and the listening tunnels, and view the guns, canons and even Revolutionary War re-enactments.

The Newport Jazz Festival goes back to 1954 when, according to promoter George Wein, it was an instant success, attracting over the years every jazz great, from Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and Dizzy Gillespie to Charles Mingus, Miles Davis and Ella Fitzgerald. "Today, there are hundreds of jazz festivals all over the world," says Wein, "but it all began here in Newport. Towns and cities love jazz festivals because it's good for tourism, and jazz is a good word that brings in an adult audience." Jazz on a Summer's Day, the best jazz film ever made, documents the 1958 Newport Jazz Festival.

Like many of the festival's 10,000 fans, I was happy to sit on the grass, listening to the music on two stages, enjoying the sun and watching scores of smart yachts bobbing up and down in the sparkling sea outside the festival fence.

Alas, I missed the August Folk Festival, which takes place just before the Jazz Festival, as Bob Dylan topped the bill. Newport is where folk icon Dylan changed the direction of rock music in 1965 when he played an electric guitar with a rock band for the first time. The shocked folkies in the audience booed him, and Dylan vowed he would never return (until he was wooed back last year). This time, the Newport audience gave him an ovation and, I was told, even Al Gore joined in the dancing in front of the stage. But then, Newport is the type of place that encourages you to enjoy yourself in ways you never anticipated!