Skip the mansions and go to the library. Some vacation huh? Newport will surprise you with its layers of delight.

Rhode Island’s island town is a gilded place with its mega-mansions and massive yachts, but it’s also a personable walk-about kind of place with historic characters and present-day residents protecting and preserving houses, boats and traditions to share some incredible history with the rest of us.

For certain, guided tours of The Breakers, The Elms and their neighboring mansions lure lots of visitors who are happy they did so, but there’s more. Being on foot helps discover the rest, but isn’t always mandatory.

I decided early on in my three-day June visit not to swoon over the unattainable Gilded Age but to figure out what all the rest of Newport might offer.

The mansions drive-by I did on Ocean Drive and Bellevue Avenue; the going-inside I skipped, or saved for another time. What I found were other houses, some which let me in, some which never intended to and one I thought was open for tours but I startled a local bridge club.

When I stopped counting yachts in the harbor and strolled a few blocks to the international school where some are being restored, I felt more kinship with the people---working stiffs like me as opposed to someone who could rent a yacht, or own it.

Food everywhere was excellent, but the night I pushed back from the waterfront dining table and started asking around to find out where the local people eat, I treated my budget better.

The drive to next door Middletown wasn’t scenic like the Newport harbor, but eating seafood at Anthony’s with the regular community let me eavesdrop on a different accent and observe that stuffies, chowder in several styles and the day’s catch please the hometown folks too, just like they do tourist me.

Lunch on the lawn at Castle Hill on Ocean Drive, however, would surely be a grand experience, overlooking the Narragansett Bay and being looked over by those sailing in the harbor.

Handy Lunch on Thames Street meets the needs of local laborers and budget visitors for breakfast and lunch, and White Horse Tavern on Marlborough Street gives a more Gilded Age ambiance and price.

Plus, George Washington ate there.

Newport serves up many inviting alternative steps along with solid tours to experience the famous side. Surprising interesting options cropped up as I wandered, sometimes aimlessly and sometimes with a purpose.

The Visitor Information Center helps with both; it’s a big bustling hub for ideas, maps and brochures, buses and trolleys. Bathrooms too, Dunkin Donuts for a quick bite, and 30 minutes free parking which is important in this busy town.

Number 23 America’s Cup Avenue is the address. I’m no sailor but that street name belongs here and since Newport held the America’s Cup title for 50 years, 1930-1983. Switzerland has it now.

Seven of the legendary America’s Cup twelve-meter yachts on Newport’s Narragansett Bay are available to sail any summer afternoon -- a casual two-hour trip or a three-hour racing event on Sunday afternoons.

I got close to three of the yachts, including Ted Turner’s red American Eagle, mostly because I was on a calmer vessel called the Amazing Grace. Seemed more suitable for me to glide around this Bay listening to the discourse of cruise guide Andy Lindh while Barry O’Neill captained the boat.

Hard to keep up with the history lessons and “Look over there” suggestions because in this yacht-filled neighborhood gawking comes more naturally than paying attention. Plus, the mix of info is astonishing.

“The two-masted Ticonderoga over there won more races than any. See that spire in town? George Washington worshiped there, sat in pew 81, and the church was already 50 years old.

“Oh look, the Athena is in; she’s among the world’s largest private yachts—296 feet.

“Don’t miss Jackie Bouvier’s family home; her wedding reception to Jack Kennedy happened on that lawn.

“Like Jimmy Buffet music? You could hear it for miles when he performed at the Newport Jazz Festival on the lawn over there at Fort Adams.

“Want a place here for your yacht? There can be a seven-year wait for a mooring. Like that one, the Pangea? Has 7,000 square feet and sleeps 12.

“Used to be able to rent it for $500,000 a week, plus expenses, but not now.”

And so it goes on the harbor all along Newport’s edges. If I knew my ship names, or even that a sloop has one mast, a ketch and yawl have two and a schooner has two or more, I might have followed a little better.

My world never has included any of this, so hearing about and seeing such vessels up close was indeed a traveling benefit.

Walking along America’s Cup Avenue, Thames Street and each of the 15 wharfs, piers and landings offers constant views of masts and sails, as did my window in the Newport Harbor Hotel and Marina.

All those wharves are lively places with restaurants and shops, plus kiosks to book on-the-water experiences. Since immense wealth helped set this city apart decades ago, seemed like in my day I should have been able to tell the yacht owners from the hotel dwellers strolling around, but I couldn’t.

Around-the-harbor viewing the first afternoon was a good idea because that show certainly doesn’t happen just anywhere.

Looking at Newport’s mansions and scenery from the other side, the roadside, with a narrated around-the-town trolley the next morning is the next way to go no matter what you want to do the rest of your holiday. Get the sense of place from both sides, land and water.

Lots of people book the trolley tickets that let you off to head inside some of the mansions.

I stayed on board and went back that way only to do the Cliff Walk, a pedestrian walk-by-the mansions experience. Certain mystique to peeking into back yards.

Free is always good, and this 3.5 mile walk on the island’s eastern shore is just that.

You won’t be alone; a million folks seem to like this ocean-to-one side with Gilded Age mansions to the other each year. Just swivel your neck and enjoy the views.

Allow two hours to walk one way; take the yellow line, Route 67 trolley to get there and back to the Visitors Center.

Maps are good to get in Newport; the Cliff Walk version even points out a few spots where the terrain is difficult, and pinpoints the entry and exit points. Don’t have to do the whole distance.

Two other maps armed me with friendly information to amble around downtown, a few blocks east of the harbor.

The Walking Tour of Historic Hill is strolling-friendly with big type, simple titles and red arrows pointing the way. No information about the buildings or streets is printed here because yellow diamonds on the map show where to find 15 sidewalk signs sharing the history.

Newport’s Old Quarter Arts and Culture Neighborhood map covers a similar territory, and more, with a sentence or two about 17 historic sites, plus markers for nearly two dozen private Colonial homes.

I really liked using both maps concurrently. They’re small enough to be manageable, not flapping around in the harbor breeze.

Wander inside the Historical Society Museum with engaging second-floor exhibits from the 1600s through the Gilded Age, all in a 1762 building, and inside Touro Synagogue, an active congregation in America’s oldest standing synagogue.

At 4:00 p.m. I was too late to go in when I reached the Art Museum so I settled for the Redwood Library & Athenaeum next door.

Should have known to choose that first. What a grand place, especially if you like to read. This is America’s oldest lending library in continuous use – and they have 867 of their first books!

Pretty good for a place founded in 1747. Tours happen weekdays at 10:30.

Lots of libraries and schoolrooms have the familiar Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington, who was 18 when the Redwood started; this one has six Stuart originals, colonial furniture, including the earliest documented set of Windsor chairs in New England, sculpture and portraits.

Jane, daughter of Gilbert and Charlotte Stuart painted too and I found an exhibition of her work, plus her father’s, in the Library, running through December.

Whitehorne House downtown on Thames Street is another go in, but closed Tuesday and Wednesday. Furniture is the focus in this 1811 Federal period home, shapely pieces from the 18th century Newport Townsend and Goddard workshops

Doris Duke and Jacquelyn Bouvier Kennedy Onassis spent five years seeing that this house was properly restored and furnished after years as a butcher shop and dry cleaners.

Duke, who inherited $12 million in 1925 when she was 12 years old, founded the Newport Restoration Foundation in 1968 to preserve more than 80 local Colonial buildings.

My walking-about-by-myself discoveries are easily duplicated, but guides are ready too.

A formal walking tour happens every day June through September, and Saturdays in April, May, October and November. Special Saturday tours with great titles like Rum and Revolution, Old House ABCs, Working Waterfront and Buried History can also be reserved.

Newport’s Gilded Age treasures plus all its side stories call for more than a weekend.