“The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don’t want, drink what you don’t like, and do what you’d rather not,” said Samuel Clemens, aka Mark Twain. Always a man for a pithy quote, apparently Clemens liked to try out his latest one-liners on dinner guests. He even had a faithful manservant on hand to note what got the best laughs, which sounds either tedious or brilliant, depending on your point of view.
With one menu from May 1887 including clams, crab, squab, roast lamb, sweetbreads in port wine, potatoes, asparagus, tomato jelly, strawberries, candies and ice cream – all in a single meal – washed down with punch, champagne and claret, he would have done well to heed his own advice.
We learn all this on a fascinating tour of the famous writer’s house in Hartford, Connecticut, where the genuine affection of the guides brings the stories of the Clemens family to life. On the top floor is Sam’s study, complete with smoking balcony and billiard table. Apparently he liked to put kittens in the billiard-pockets. With japes like that, it’s a wonder Tom Sawyer got written at all.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin author Harriet Beecher Stowe lived next door. There, visits are billed as history tours, exploring anti-slavery activism and abolitionism over time.
Connecticut is often written off as a weekend retreat for Manhattan millionaires, but ditching this and its reputation for stability, our explorations reveal more of the layered stories of America. During our trip we will visit Washington, a small town that predates the founding of the United States; and Foxwoods, a vast casino resort established by the Mashantucket Pequot Tribe, which had dwindled to just a handful of people before re-establishing their land claim in a major lawsuit in the 1980s. For a while it was the largest casino in the world.
Connecticut on screen
One of the USA’s smallest states (only neighbouring Rhode Island, and Delaware have less acreage), Connecticut packs in a wealth of contrasts, and while many fly in as a gateway to New England, or as an optional hop to New York, there’s plenty to keep you instate.
We start in Washington, a destination for fans of 2000s TV show Gilmore Girls. Series creator Amy Sherman-Palladino was inspired to dream up the show’s fictional location, Stars Hollow, while staying at Washington’s Mayflower Inn. She later explained: “if I can make people feel this much of what I felt walking around this fairy town […] it was a feeling of warmth and small-town camaraderie.”
Today, the Mayflower is a chic and pricey spot, set in the midst of gorgeous gardens, and staffed by types who wouldn’t have looked out of place in an Abercrombie & Fitch photo shoot, back in the days when that type of thing was still aspirational.
Washington is lovely. And, just as in Gilmore Girls, there is a cafe, a gift shop, a brilliant bookshop, a town hall and a town park. They sell caviar in the local food market and everyone says hello, just like on TV. Except there’s a weird disconnect for anyone seeking series landmarks as, while Washington may have inspired Sherman Palladino, filming never actually took place there. Instead, the pilot was shot in Ontario; and the following seven seasons on a Warner Bros Los Angeles lot. But the selfie-squad are a resourceful gang, and apparently Gilmore Girls tourism is still booming locally, over a decade after the show wrapped.
Movie locations abound across the state, with Connecticut sets for the likes of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Mystic Pizza, Amistad, and The Stepford Wives – although you wonder how much of a claim to fame that latter should actually be. Lovers of a certain subgenre of film may also revel in the Connecticut Christmas Movie Trail. Launched at the end of last year, the self-guided tour takes you through the locations of 22 different, but undoubtedly rather similar, Hallmark movies filmed in the state. The map is available to download at ctvisit.com.
In art and architecture
From the ridiculous to the sublime, more authentic marvels abound in New Haven, where the sprawling Yale campus is a pseudo-Gothic extravaganza with some astonishing modern bits thrown in. And while that might sound like an architectural hodge podge, it actually all hangs together, beautifully.
We take a campus tour, where a fun and self-deprecating but nonetheless alarmingly high achieving undergraduate shows us around. We gasp at the Sterling Memorial Library, which opened in 1931. James Gamble Rogers’s design resembles a vast cathedral, but here they are worshipping the astonishing volumes of knowledge held in acres of bookshelves.
Across campus, the Bienecke Library houses rare books and manuscripts. Designed by Gordon Bunshaft and opened in 1963, it is clad in translucent marble panels in place of windows, and its collections include a copy of the Gutenberg Bible. Louis Kahn’s Yale Center for British Art is closed for renovation, and will reopen on March 29th, so we visit the Yale University Art Gallery, which is one of those lovely galleries of just the right size to let you feel you’ve seen plenty without being overwhelmed. They have a delicious collection of Edward Hoppers, some really nice Kandinskys, and a range of visual treats from Georgia O’Keefe to Jackson Pollock to Mark Rothko.
Marvellous architecture is often all the more satisfying if you can eat or sleep in it, and lovers of Bauhaus Brutalism should be overjoyed by New Haven’s Hotel Marcel. Originally built as offices for the Armstrong Rubber Company, and then for Pirelli Tyres, it was abandoned for decades before being reimagined as a fully sustainable, passive and net zero hotel. Opened in 2022, its rooms are gorgeous, with a laid-back luxurious-meets-minimal vibe. The food is pretty fabulous too.
About an hour’s drive down to the coast is another architectural wonder: Philip Johnson’s Glass House is the ultimate in pared-down living, leaving the type of glass box extension so beloved of the likes of Dermot Bannon for dust. Johnson designed the Glass House in the 1940s, alongside his Brick House, a more closed in space for guests. Admission is by guided tour only, theglasshouse.org.
In food
Alongside its nickname as The Land of Steady Habits, Connecticut is also known as The Nutmeg State, an allusion to the canny habits of locals carving wooden nutmegs to pass off as the more costly spices back in the 1800s. Still, instead of being alarmed by tooth-breaking fake kernels, today you’ll find an array of excellent foodie offerings. These range from a chocolate making class at Fascia’s of Waterbury, where they still hand-make the old fashioned way (faschoc.com); to a sparklingly surreal meal at Cava of Southington where, come winter, hundreds of thousands of lights and ornaments at “America’s Most Decorated Restaurant” will make your jaw drop as you munch your food (cavact.com).
We head for more tasteful pleasures, along the coast to Madison, where the Madison Beach Hotel sits on shore of Long Island Sound. Recently featuring in an episode of RTÉ‘s High Road Low Road (it was on the High Road of course), the hotel’s bar looks out over the water, and seafood unsurprisingly features on a menu where oysters are a big hit, and a highlight is its signature tuna tartare.
“Writers come and stay here,” says general manager John Mathers, when I tell him it feels pretty inspiring. They must be doing well, as high season rates start at $500 per night. Literary-minded visitors can tie their stays in with events at nearby RJ Julia’s bookstore (rjjulia.com).
A little more low-road than oysters, perhaps, Connecticut is a pizza hotspot, and in February last year New Haven was declared Pizza Capital of America in the US Congress – to howls of derision from representatives of Chicago and New York, it must be added. Pizzas from New Haven stalwart Frank Pepe’s were served to parliamentarians to seal the deal, which must have made a nice change from their other, more pressing matters of state. We check out industrial-chic hotspot BAR, where the brick oven pizza choices arrive as enormous discs of tastiness. Pro tip: share.
On the subject of pizza, we spend an afternoon in Mystic, a very pretty seaside village, which has a Dalkey-meets-Kinsale kind of a vibe. The boutiques are eclectic and a trip to Sift Bake Shop is a must for incredibly tasty pastries and cakes.
Mystic was made famous by the 1988 Julia Roberts movie: Mystic Pizza, the restaurant, which is still a local landmark, having caught the eye of screenwriter Amy Jones, staying in the area one summer.
Just outside town, the Mystic Seaport Museum is well worth a visit all on its own (mysticseaport.org). The 19 acre site includes a recreation of a New England village, a working shipyard, exhibitions and scientific studies. There is a mesmerising selection of old ships’ figureheads, and an unforgettable guided tour of the Charles W Morgan. This 1841 former whaling ship is the oldest surviving commercial ship in the US. Even though the mechanics of whaling are stomach-turning, and its impacts on the species devastating, it is hard not to be fascinated, and somewhat awestruck by what the crews endured, often being at sea for years.
[ Manhattan transfer – Frank McNally on a family weekend in New YorkOpens in new window ]
The longest whaling trip in history lasted 11 years, we are told. The Nile set sail from the port of New London in 1858 and didn’t return until 1869, missing the entire American civil war en route.
At the end of my stay, I catch a train to Grand Central Station New York (journey time under two hours). Connecticut may be a jumping-off point for the rest of New England for many – and Bradley Airport is definitely far more relaxing than JFK as a transit hub to Manhattan – but as a destination in its own right, the Nutmeg State is fascinating feast – in so many senses of the word.
Gemma Tipton was a guest of the Connecticut Tourism Office.
Getting There
Aer Lingus flies to Bradley International Airport from March to January, with daily flights from March 29th to the end of October. Fares from €219 each way as part of a return journey (aerlingus.com).
Getting Around
A regular shuttle runs from Bradley Airport to Union Station Hartford, with rail connections through New Haven to the coastal destinations of Long Island Sound, including Bridgeport and Mystic, and up to Vermont, or south to Manhattan. Fly-drive is the best option for exploring picture-perfect villages, national parks, coastal resorts and all manner of art and architectural wonders. Find a range of car hire desks at Bradley.
Where to Stay
- We stayed at The Goodwin Hotel, Hartford. Rooms in the boutique former apartment building, where back in the 1800s millionaire financier JP Morgan once had a gaff are from €200 (goodwinhartford.com).
- The New Haven Hotel is bright and central with friendly staff; from €125 (newhavenhotel.com).
- Rooms at Foxwoods Resort Casino are from €130 (foxwoods.com).
- Design and architecture buffs will love Hotel Marcel New Haven; from €210 (hotelmarcel.com).
- Gilmore Girls fans with deep pockets may swoon over the Mayflower Inn, Washington; from €700 (aubergeresorts.com/mayflower).
- Or head for the coast with a super relaxing stay at the lovely Madison Beach Hotel; from €275 off season (madisonbeachhotel.com).
