My wife and I are planning a semi-spontaneous trip down to the Connecticut/Rhode Island part of the country this weekend (we’re in Vermont), and we need to know what we should see and do. One major caveat: we’re going to have our 18 month old daughter with us, which will limit us a lot, obviously.
So far, we’re leaning toward stopping by Southwick Zoo in Massachusetts on the way, and then heading toward Newport, RI to see one or two of the mansions there. The kiddo would enjoy spending some time at the beach as well, probably.
Beyond that, we’re pretty open. My wife hates seafood, but I like it. We lean toward history, nice views, and cool buildings more than music, bars, and hiking. But we’re open to any and all suggestions. We’re planning on leaving Friday and coming back Sunday.
Well there is a lovely aquarium in Mystic, not overlarge. It has a tiny animal section as well as a couple large tanks and a section of smaller tanks. They have a kid play section where the kids get guided in handling some of the fish [I know one area has horseshoe crabs, and another has stuff like clams and little stuff] and there is a performing fishy show.
Mystic seaport has a kids museum and some really neat stuff, you can tour a whaling ship, and last time I was there they had guys singing scattered around the campus.
Submarine Museum? They have the USS Nautilus bolted to the pier, first nuke sub. Touring it is interesting [for the first 30 or 40 times you do it :eek::smack::D]
In Newport, the mansions are all on Bellevue Ave. If you take Bellevue to the end and turn right, it becomes Ocean Ave. (aka ocean Drive), which has some of the nicest rocky coastline in R.I., and there are several places you can stop and get out, the largest being the last, Brenton Point State Park. Once you get there, you can continue on back into Newport proper, but it’s a bit tricky finding your way, so the best thing might be to turn around and return the way you came.
If you go to Newport by taking US 1 to Rt. 138 East, you will first cross the island of Conanicut (aka Jamestown). Rt. 138 now conveys people to the Newport Bridge so efficiently that they may barely notice they’re on Conanicut at all. If you want to get off the beaten track, though, go down to the southern tip of Conanicut, called Beaver Tail – more gorgeous rocky coastline.
If you like pizza, I recommend visiting either Sally’s or Pepe’s on Wooster Square in New Haven (although I prefer Modern Apizza on State Street). Pepe’s is particularly famous for its white clam pizza, although you mentioned that your wife does not like seafood.
You could take a tour of Yale and the rest of New Haven. (Don’t laugh; there is quite a lot of history in New Haven and some buildings by notable twentieth century architects.)
Perhaps it’s different (12 years since our trip), perhaps it was the route that we took, but I found New Haven to be very interesting. It was two entirely different worlds: you’re driving through an endless row of crack houses, cheap bars and check cashing places, then… Yale. Or as we cracked, “Fortress Yale”.
Just don’t leave your luggage visible. Back in my young and innocent days, I went for an interview at Yale, and when I returned to my car, it had been broken into and my luggage stolen… in broad daylight on a very busy street. (I probably shouldn’t pick on New Haven; I’m sure this could happen anywhere, and it just happened to happen there.)
Hey, aruvqan, just wanted to let you know that this is definitely on the itinerary for our upcoming New England trip! I told MrWhatsit about it, and he said: “Wait, they have the Nautilus? And you can tour it?! We’re so there.”
If you like art, Yale has a very good collection of British art and in Hartford, the Wadsworth Atheneum includes “the Morgan collection of Greek and Roman antiquities and European decorative arts; world-renowned baroque and surrealist paintings; an unsurpassed collection of Hudson River School landscapes; European and American Impressionist paintings; modernist masterpieces; the Serge Lifar collecton of Ballets Russes drawings and costumes; the George A. Gay collection of prints; the Wallace Nutting collection of American colonial furniture and decorative arts; the Samuel Colt firearms collection; costumes and textiles; African American art and artifacts; and contemporary art.” Also in Hartford is Mark Twain’s house and Harriet Beecher Stowe’s home is next door. (The two homes were a standard school field trip.)
And there are of course the two big casinos in the Southeastern corner of the state.
Awesome =) they also have a small museum on the history of subs in the US, and some captured german and japanese one and 2 man subs, stuff like that. It really is fascinating.
The Athenaeum is a lovely art museum, and I can second at least the Twain house [the Stowe house was closed the day we visited with my aprents]
Before I forget, there is a fun museum in Bridgeport - Barnumwas there for a while. Bugger, forget that - it apparently got hit by the tornado and is closed for repairs. Maybe next trip.
There is a train thingy down inEssex with train/riverboat ride deal.
Hm, look there is some sort of package deal for the train, the sub museum, dinosaurs and a beach, might be something to check out.
There is also a trolley museum in East Windsor, if you like trains.
BTW, I’m somewhat amused that someone is considering a tourism trip to Connecticut. I’ve sat in the terminal at Midway Airport in Chicago waiting for the Southwest Airlines flight to Hartford, and wondered how they ever find enough people who voluntarily want to go to Connecticut that they can fill up a plane.
Heh. Yeah, I know what you mean. It’s mostly because we’ve never been there, and want to tick off one more state. And also, vacation is all about change. Up where we live, we have New England quaintness oozing out of our asses, so it’s nice to visit civilization every now and then, so as to appreciate what we have.
Thanks for all the suggestions so far, everyone. We’ll look into them.
My Dad served on the Nautilus - that’s what brought us to living in Mystic waaay back in 1960 - though I wasn’t born yet.
Everything you mention in Mystic is great! I’d also plus Stonington Borough couple minutes from Mystic. Quaint, smaller than Mystic, and right on the ocean. Have dinner at Skippers Dock!!
Something else that might be worth seeing is the Peabody Museum at Yale. If you’ve been to one of the really big natural history museums, like the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan, it might not seem so impressive, but it has a decent dinosaur collection and some other stuff that you might like. (Also, Modern Apizza isn’t very far away. And it has really great pizza.)
