Connecticut

Colin Caplan:

Well, my favorite thing to do in town is to basically go out and to explore a lot of the beautiful scenes such as the parks, Yale University and just kind of take it all in.

Yale University takes over the downtown. It’s like an entire medieval city here. A city within a city.

New Haven has some of the best modern architecture within walking distance. So, the Beinecke
Rare Book Library is one of the largest rare book libraries in the world. It is a cube. It is sitting on four piers. It is literally held up by the walls, which are a truss. Beinecke’s windows are actually one-inch thick marble slabs that allow just enough opaque light so that they don’t damage the books inside and they end up creating this amazing effect of very dim light.

The Yale University Art Gallery is one of the world’s best art galleries with a mixture of so many different styles. They have sculpture galleries, they have ancient, they have modern. And all the while, you’re walking through masterpieces itself.

There’s a phenomenon in New Haven: People come from around the country and around the world to eat pizza. People will have pizza in the morning at Frank Pepe’s and then wait for the afternoon to have dinner at Sally’s Apizza.

People sometimes ask me: “How do you pronounce this New Haven style pizza (Apizza) spelled with an ‘A’ in the beginning.” It’s an old word and we say: “A-beats”.

One of my favorite things to do in New Haven is to also get out of the center city and see some of the amazing outdoor spots that are here.

I would recommend going to Lighthouse Point Park with an amazing connection to the water and a view of New Haven from that vantage point.

East Rock Park has some of the best views of New Haven. You get on top of the city and you’re able to see over and across the skyline.

I love New Haven because it’s full of passionate people, great places to see, amazing food and probably some of the best outdoor excursions that you can get in a small city like this.

Peggy Roberts:

If you’ve never come to Mystic before, what you’ll see when you get here is kind of a romantic-looking 1800s town, a seafaring town where there would have been whaling ships back in the day.

There’s also a very quaint downtown and a very iconic bascule bridge. It connects the Stonington part of Mystic with the Groton part of Mystic. You see big boats and little boats and people wave as they’re going by. And it’s just a really great experience to sit in the park and watch all this happen.

Mystic Seaport Museum is the largest nautical museum in the country. It has all kinds of historic boats. You can experience what it was like to be in a whaling town back in the 1800s. There is the last wooden whaling ship in existence; it’s the Charles W. Morgan. You can board it; you can experience what it was like to be in one of those little bunks and how it must have been to be on those ships for years at a time.

At the aquarium, you can see all kinds of animals. The beluga whales are really the favorite, biggest draw for the aquarium. They’re right inside the front door and there are three of them right now, and the one that seems to get the most attention is Juno. He’s a young adult male who comes right up to the window. One thing you don’t want to miss if you go to the aquarium is having an encounter with some of the animals there. It’s well worth the time.

One of the few things that would not be in a guide is the Denison Pequotsepos Nature Center. It’s got hiking trails that connect some of the bigger attractions like the aquarium and the seaport. And you can walk around back there and see all of the nature that we have here in Mystic. There’s even owls. It’s all really cool.

One of my favorite places to have dinner or a drink is Red 36, which is located right on the river in Mystic. And it’s kind of a hidden gem because it’s behind a marina but it is phenomenal. The food is great there and the location can’t be beat.

If you take a walk down the main street of Mystic on any given day, you’re going to step back in time. It’s kind of a little romantic feeling because the buildings are older; they’re very well restored.

On the must-see list is Olde Mistick Village. It’s a small town that’s made in the image of the 1700s. It has all kinds of shops, gift shops, places to eat. I love grabbing a drink on Sunday Funday at the Jealous Monk in their beer garden.

We also have some craft food artisans. One of them is Sticky Situations, where you can get local honey, bee pollen and you can taste it.

Mystic Knotwork is a retail store where you can go and buy different crafts made with nautical knots.

Mystic has long been – in addition to being a nautical community – it was also an artist’s colony. So that’s why the craftsmen like Mystic Knotwork are so important to this community.

You don’t want to miss the really quaint charm of a New England village. It’s a great place.