4 Best Sights in The Quiet Corner, Connecticut

Hand puppets, rod puppets, body puppets, shadow puppets, marionettes—this museum has more than 2,500 puppets in its extraordinary collection. Many are the work of Frank Ballard, a master of puppetry who established the country's first complete undergraduate and graduate degree programs in puppetry at the University of Connecticut. If you're lucky you might even catch Oscar the Grouch from Sesame Street on display.

This pink board-and-batten Gothic Revival-style house was built in 1846 as a summer home for New York silk merchant, publisher, and abolitionist Henry C. Bowen and his wife, Lucy. The house and outbuildings (including a carriage barn with the nation's oldest indoor bowling alley) hold a prominent place in history, having hosted four U.S. presidents: Ulysses S. Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, William Henry Harrison, and William McKinley. The parterre garden features 21 flower beds surrounded by 600 yards of boxwood hedge.

UConn's large, sprawling main campus offers lots for visitors to see and do. The William Benton Museum of Art's permanent collection includes centuries-old European and American paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculptures, and the Jorgensen Center for the Performing Arts presents a series of 25--30 music, dance, and theater programs during the academic year. The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry has more than 2,500 puppets on display (UConn is one of two colleges in the country that offer a puppetry degree); and, depending on the season, you might catch a Connecticut Huskies football game or watch the amazing women's basketball team play at home.

The permanent collection of this museum includes European and American paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and sculptures from the 16th century to the present. Its galleries also host changing exhibitions, lectures, recitals, and readings. The museum has a café and museum shop.