26 Best Sights in New Haven, Mystic, and the Coast, Connecticut

Central to Old Lyme's artistic reputation is this grand late-Georgian-style mansion, which served as a boardinghouse for members of the Lyme Art Colony in the first decades of the 20th century. When artists such as Willard Metcalf, Clark Voorhees, Childe Hassam, and Henry Ward Ranger flocked to the area to paint its varied landscape, Miss Florence Griswold offered both housing and artistic encouragement. The house has been restored to its 1910 appearance, when the colony was in full flower (clues to the house's layout and décor were gleaned from members' paintings). The museum's 10,000-square-foot Krieble Gallery, on the riverfront, hosts changing exhibitions of American art. Café Flo, on-site, serves lunch on the veranda or have a picnic on the lawn.

The largest of the state's public beach parks, Hammonasset Beach State Park has 2 miles of white-sand beach, a top-notch nature center, excellent birding, and a hugely popular campground with more than 550 open sites. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards; parking (fee); showers; toilets. Best for: swimming; walking.

Oddly enough, you'll find the world's largest indoor adventure ropes course within Jordan's Furniture Store. The 60-foot-high courses have more than 100 activities, like walking across zigzag swinging beams rope ladders, bridges, moving planks, a 50-foot free-fall jump, four 200-foot-long ziplines, and more. At Little IT, toddlers and little kids can zip along, too.

Housed in a large complex 1 mile from Foxwoods, this museum brings to life in exquisite detail the history and culture of the Northeastern Woodland tribes in general and the Mashantucket Pequots in particular. Highlights include views of an 18,000-year-old glacial crevasse, a caribou hunt from 11,000 years ago, and a 17th-century fort. Perhaps most remarkable is a sprawling "immersion environment": a 16th-century village with more than 50 life-size figures and real smells and sounds. Audio devices provide detailed information about the sights. A full-service restaurant offers both Native and traditional American cuisine. A 185-foot stone-and-glass tower provides sweeping views of the surrounding countryside.

The famous Arctic Coast exhibit—which holds 750,000 gallons of water, measures 165 feet at its longest point by 85 feet at its widest point, and ranges from just inches to 16½ feet deep—is just a small part of this revered establishment and home to three graceful beluga whales and several species of seals and sea lions. You can also see African penguins, fascinating sea horses, Pacific octopuses, and sand tiger sharks. Don't miss feeding time at the Ray Touch Pool, where rays suction sand eels right out of your hand. The animals here go through 1,000 pounds of herring, capelin, and squid each day—Juno, a male beluga whale, is responsible for consuming 85 pounds of that himself.

Mystic Seaport, the nation's leading maritime museum, encompasses 19 acres stretched along the Mystic River. The indoor and outdoor exhibits include a re-created New England coastal village, a working shipyard, and formal museum buildings with more than 1 million artifacts, including figureheads, models, tools, ship plans, scrimshaw, paintings, photos, and recordings. Along the narrow village streets and in some of the historic buildings, craftspeople demonstrate skills such as open-hearth cooking and weaving, interpreters bring the past to life, musicians sing sea chanteys, and special squads with maritime skills show how to properly set sails on a square-rigged ship. The museum's more than 500 vessels include the Charles W. Morgan, the last remaining wooden whaling ship afloat, and the 1882 training ship Joseph Conrad; you can climb aboard both for a look around or for sail-setting demonstrations and reenactments of whale hunts.

Children under three are admitted free.

Possibly the state's finest beach, the 50-acre park has a broad white-sand beach, an Olympic-size outdoor pool with a triple waterslide, an 18-hole miniature-golf course, an arcade, a half-mile-long boardwalk, kiddie rides, food concessions, a nature trail, and a picnic area. Amenities: food and drink; lifeguards; parking (fee); showers; toilets. Best for: partiers; swimming; walking.

The world's first nuclear-powered submarine, USS Nautilus (SSN-571)—and the first submarine to complete a submerged transit of the North Pole (in 1958)—was launched and commissioned in Groton in 1954. The Nautilus spent 25 active years as a showpiece of U.S. technological know-how and is now permanently docked at the Submarine Force Museum, a couple of miles upriver from where the sub was built. Visitors are welcome to climb aboard and explore. The museum, just outside the entrance to Naval Submarine Base New London, is a repository of thousands of artifacts, documents, and photographs detailing the history of the U.S. Submarine Force component of the U.S. Navy, along with educational and interactive exhibits.

The Kate, as the Center is generally known, is an intimate, 250-seat theater in the Old Saybrook Town Hall building on the historic town green. The Kate presents a full calendar of concerts, dance, drama, opera, comedy, films (including some classic Hepburn films), and children's theater. (Some performances are broadcast on PBS TV in the national series, "The Kate.") In addition to the performances and presentations, a small museum displays memorabilia and reminiscences about Katharine Hepburn's life and career. She was a resident of Old Saybrook from 1912 (age five) until her death in 2003.

Featuring the largest collection of British art outside Britain, the center surveys the development of English art, life, and thought from the Elizabethan period to the present. The skylighted galleries, one of architect Louis I. Kahn's final works, contain artwork by John Constable, William Hogarth, Thomas Gainsborough, Joshua Reynolds, and J. M. W. Turner, to name but a few. You'll also find rare books and paintings documenting English history. Explore on your own or take a free guided tour, offered Thursday and Saturday at 11 am and weekends at 2 pm.

New Haven's manufacturing history dates to the 19th century, but the city owes its fame to merchant Elihu Yale. In 1718, his contributions enabled the Collegiate School, founded in 1701 at Saybrook, to settle in New Haven and change its name to Yale College. In 1887, all of its schools were consolidated into Yale University. This is one of the nation's great institutions of higher learning, and its campus holds some handsome neo-Gothic buildings and noteworthy museums. Student guides conduct hour-long walking tours that include Connecticut Hall in the Old Campus, one of the oldest buildings in the state, which housed a number of illustrious students—including Nathan Hale, Noah Webster, and Eli Whitney. Tours start from the visitor center.

Since its founding in 1832, this art gallery has amassed more than 200,000 works from around the world, dating from ancient Egypt to the present day. Highlights include works by Vincent van Gogh, Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, Winslow Homer, and Thomas Eakins, as well as Etruscan and Greek vases, Chinese ceramics and bronzes, early Italian paintings, and a collection of American decorative arts that is considered one of the world's finest. The gallery's landmark main building is also of note: Opened in 1953, it was renowned architect Louis I. Kahn's first major commission and the first modernist building on the neo-Gothic Yale campus.

The library's collection of literary papers, early manuscripts, and rare books include a Gutenberg Bible and original Audubon bird prints; the exhibition spaces on the ground floor and mezzanine are open to the public. The building that houses them is an attraction in its own right: the walls are made of marble cut so thin that the light shines through, making the interior a breathtaking sight on sunny days. Introductory tours for individuals are offered on Saturday afternoons; group tours are Yale-led and require advance registration at the Yale Visitor Information Center

It was here (legend has it), on the Groton side of the Thames River, that the infamous traitor Benedict Arnold stood watching the important port of New London (a supply center for the Continental Army and friendly port for Connecticut privateers) burn in 1781 during the Revolutionary War. Whether Arnold actually stood there is open to question; but the American defenders of Ft. Griswold were massacred by Arnold's British troops during the Battle of Groton Heights—and New London did burn according to his orders. The 134-foot-high Groton Monument, which you can climb for a sweeping view of the river and New London, is a memorial to the fallen. The adjacent Monument House Museum has historic displays; the Ebenezer Avery House, on the grounds and recently restored, is where the wounded were sheltered in 1781.

Once the location of the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and later the U.S. Navy Underwater Sound Laboratory, the fort was originally built to defend New London Harbor from British attack. You'll now find a 19th-century stonework-and-masonry fort, an extensive visitor center focusing on military history, a top-rate fishing pier, a waterfront boardwalk with fantastic views, and a picnic area when you want to relax.

Owned and operated by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation on reservation lands near Ledyard, Foxwoods is the largest resort casino in North America. The enormous compound, which opened in 1992, draws 40,000-plus visitors daily to its seven casinos with more than 3,400 slot machines, 300 gaming tables, and a 3,600-seat bingo parlor. This 9-million-square-foot complex includes four luxury hotels, a 5,500-square-foot pool "sanctuary," two full-service spas, a retail concourse, numerous dining options, several theaters and other venues that attract national performers, a video arcade, extreme sports facilities, a bowling alley, children's activities, an 18-hole championship golf course, and—as counterpoint to all that action—marked trails through the surrounding woods.

At this site are the remnants of a Revolutionary War fort whose American defenders were massacred in 1781 by British troops under the command of the American traitor Benedict Arnold. The 134-foot-tall Groton Monument is a memorial to the fallen; you can climb it for a sweeping view of the shoreline. The adjacent Monument House Museum has historic displays.

What began as a two-room home around 1675 evolved into a pre-Revolutionary War tavern; by 1776, it was the elegant home of a local patriot that has since been lovingly restored by the Society of the Founders of Norwich. The house is furnished with Early American artifacts, and interpreters explain the architecture of the house and the lifestyle of those who lived or frequented the home over the centuries.

Housed in a neoclassical granite building that overlooks the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and Long Island Sound, this museum was founded in 1932 with funds bequeathed by Harriet Upson Allyn in memory of her whaling merchant father, Captain Lyman Allyn (1797–1874). Inside is an impressive collection of more than 15,000 objects covering a span of 5,000 years. Works also include contemporary, modern, and Early American fine arts; American Impressionist paintings; Connecticut decorative arts; and European works from the 16th through 19th centuries. The 12 acres of surrounding grounds includes a sculpture trail.

The Mohegan Tribe of Connecticut, known as Wolf People, opened this casino just south of Norwich in 1996; today, it has more than 300,000 square feet of gaming space in three casino areas, totaling nearly 5,000 slot machines and more than 300 gaming tables. Also part of the complex: the Kids Quest/Cyber Quest family entertainment center, a shopping mall with 32 retail stores, 43 dining options, 19 bars and lounges, and two high-rise luxury hotels—each with a pool and a full-service spa. The 10,000-seat Mohegan Sun Arena, home to the WNBA's Connecticut Sun, draws major performances; bands play in the Wolf Den nearly every night; Comix Roadhouse presents comedy acts, as the name implies, and country music; and the 175,000-square-foot Earth Expo & Convention Center holds events.

The Mohegan Tribe, known as the Wolf People, operate this casino west of Ledyard and just south of Norwich, which has more than 300,000 square feet of gaming space, including 6,000 slot machines and more than 250 gaming tables. Also part of the complex: the Kids Quest family-entertainment center, a 130,000-square-foot shopping mall, more than 40 restaurants and food-and-beverage suppliers, and a 34-story, 1,200-room luxury hotel with a full-service spa. A 10,000-seat arena, home to the WNBA's Connecticut Sun, draws major national acts, while a swanky 300-seat cabaret hosts intimate shows and comedy acts. Mohegan After Dark is a 22,000-square-foot complex with three nightclubs.

Bordered on its west side by the Yale campus, the New Haven Green is a fine example of early urban planning. Village elders set aside the 16-acre plot as a town common as early as 1638. Three early-19th-century churches—the Gothic Revival-style Trinity Episcopal Church, the Federal-style Center Congregational Church, and United Church—have contributed to its present appeal. For a year, from September 1839 to August 1840, survivors of the slave ship Amistad were incarcerated in a jail on the east side of the green and were brought out of jail to exercise there. An Amistad memorial now resides at the site of the former jail. Besides being a pleasant urban park, the Green is also the venue for festivals and events throughout the year.

After touring this small coastal winery, you can browse the works of local artists in the gallery or enjoy a picnic lunch on the grounds. Whichever you choose, the vineyard's Seaport White, a Vidal-Chardonnay blend, is a nice accompaniment.

The world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus was launched and commissioned in Groton in 1954 and spent her 25-year active career as a showpiece of U.S. technological know-how. She is permanently berthed at the Submarine Force Museum, where you're welcome to climb aboard and explore. The museum, outside the entrance to the submarine base, is a repository of artifacts, documents, and photographs detailing the history of the U.S. Submarine Force component of the U.S. Navy, and has educational and interactive exhibits.

This museum occupies a stone citadel with an attached lighthouse tower originally built in 1823 and rebuilt on higher ground 17 years later. Climb to the top of the tower for a spectacular view of Long Island Sound and three states. Six rooms of exhibits depict the maritime and agricultural history of the small coastal town.

The 100-acre cluster of redbrick buildings you see overlooking the Thames River makes up one of the four U.S. military academies. Visitors are welcome, and security is obviously tight, but being there when the Coast Guard training ship, the barque Eagle, is in port is a special treat. A small museum, located in Waesche Hall on the grounds, explores the Coast Guard's 230+ years of maritime service and includes some 200 ship models, as well as figureheads, paintings, uniforms, life-saving equipment, and cannon.