Fodor's Expert Review Bushnell Park

Fanning out from the State Capitol building, this city park is the oldest publicly funded park in the United States. Conceived by Rev. Horace Bushnell in the early 1850s, the park was designed by Swiss-born landscape architect and botanist Jacob Weidenmann. Some 1,100 trees and shrubs (157 different varieties) were planted, creating an urban arboretum. Kids love the Bushnell Park Carousel (open weekends, June–August), with its 48 intricately hand-carved horses and booming Wurlitzer band organ, built in 1914 by the Artistic Carousel Company of Brooklyn, New York, and installed in the park in 1974. A welcome oasis of green in a busy city, the park has a pond and about 750 trees, including a first-generation offspring of the state's historic Charter Oak (the state tree) and four enormous state champion trees.