Littleton

One of northern New Hampshire's largest towns (this isn't saying much, mind you) sits on a granite shelf along the Ammonoosuc River, whose swift current and drop of 235 feet enabled the community to flourish as a mill center in its early days. The railroad came through later, and Littleton grew into the region's commercial hub. Long merely a place to stock up than a real destination, it's reinvented itself in recent decades, and its lively Main Street now abounds with intriguing shops and eateries set inside tidy 19th- and early-20th-century buildings you might expect to see in an old Jimmy Stewart movie.