DH & I will be in the East Lyme & Mystic vicinities next weekend. Are there any Must See / Experience places that you can recommend? I do intend to stop at Lenny & Joe's Fish Tale in Madison for a big fat clam roll (with extra tartar sauce) and new potatoes.
Whether it be gardening, food, dog, horse or 'miscellaneous' related, please throw your ideas my way.
cheers, ta, thanks
(dumb, unrelated photo I know, but it makes me smile)
The Aquarium at Mystic? You can probably drive to Logee's. Maybe the CT people will chime in.
Hey Victor, what's a Logee?
Famous nursery and greenhouse and source for tropicals.
uh oh.
Oops. I AXidentally just ordered a catalog from them. I hate that.
Hey I saw Logee's on Martha.
There's a submarine museum around there I went to once. They have an old sub you can go into, I think its called the 'Nautilus', and a museum next to it that has torpedoes and stuff... maybe DH would like it. ☺
From Lenny & Joe's in Madison you are about 3 miles to Chamard Vineyards:
http://www.chamard.com/visiting_chamard.html
Oh my. With any luck, I can get drunk at the vineyard, pig out at the Fish Tale, then get sick on the sub. Sounds like a perfect day! HOORAY!!!
But seriously folks, I would enjoy the vineyard *and* the sub', believe it or not.
wrightie . . .Have you been to the Florence Griswold Museum in Old Lyme? The "Home of American Impressionism" has thousands of items in its collections on line (it takes a little clicking around to find it all):
http://www.flogris.org/
Up the river about ten miles from the museum is the town of Hamburg--its cove is reputed to be Connecticut's one true fjord. Across the river is Essex. Up the river a little bit is Moodus....known for the "Moodus Noises":
http://www.curbstone.org/index.cfm?webpage=96
You can loop back down to Essex at the Goodspeed Opera House:
http://www.goodspeed.org/events.aspx?id=300
Oh my, this is great stuff, DP! I haven't been to that museum. I think that I've been to Hamburg before, but I had never heard of the Moodus Noises -- I think that DH would enjoy that, too.
I haven't been to that Opera House, only the Schubart in New Haven. Jeez, I wish we were going to be there for longer than a couple days!
Wow - I didn't know the Nautilus was there. Our lab worked on the reactor fuel design for that sub - the first nuclear sub.
Yea, I went inside it, it's real nice (and cramped!) but it's cool. Actually it's in Groton which is 12miles away according to Google maps. But the Connecticut guys here know the area better and they'll correct if I'm wrong. I went to the Mysitc Aquarium and then to see the sub museum on the same day. ☺
This message was edited Feb 16, 2008 11:20 PM
Goodspeed is worth seeing if you are in the area even if you aren't attending a show - it looks just like a dollhouse perched on the river.
In the warmer season there is a River Ferry near Goodspeed you can take to a park where there is this big house/castle built by an actor who played Sherlock Holmes. i'm too lazy to look it up, but it is kinda neat.
The Nautilus museum is just off the Groton sub base, lots of signs to direct you from Rt. 95.
Mystic seaport is worth a trip, but it takes several hours to cover all the exhibits. Not as many outdoor demos in winter though. The aquarium has some nice exhibits as well, take at least two hours there.
The Gillette castle is also worth a trip. The ferry is not open now but you can go up River Road from Old Lyme to the castle in East Haddam, then go further north to see the East Haddam museum which has more Gillette memoranda, then go west to see the Goodspeed Opera house and cross over the river there.
On the way south again on Rt. 154 (or Rt. 9) you pass through Essex, which has a small Ct. River Museum with some displays of early shipbuilding and the first submarine (a similar exhibit is at the Nautilus museum). The Griswold Inn has interesting steamship paintings in its dining room, and Westbrook further south has several great restaurants. (I think that the Lenny & Joes Fish Tale in Westbrook does better with sit down meals than the one in Madison.)
Flanders Fish Market in East Lyme has a restaurant which is an upscale Lenny&Joes, as well as a fish shop.
There is a great used "Book Barn" in Niantic, (East Lyme vicinity). Two locations both on the shoreline road, one is downtown but the main site with 6 or 7 sheds crammed with books is a mile or so further west.
If you are interested in quaint shoreline locations near Mystic, Stonington is an old whaling village with several fine restaurants (Boom, Noahs, Water Steet cafe, etc.) and Randall's Ordinary in North Stonington provides communal dinners with colonial themes.
Search the Chowhound site for many recommendations for restaurants in Mystic, Stonington, Groton, Lyme, Westbrook and Essex.
Oh my. What great possibilities - thank you so much! I'll run the list passed DH. We'll be there visiting friends (and meeting our future puppy) so I'm not yet sure how much time we'll have for galavanting.
The Griswold Inn rings a bell and I'm now wondering if I've eaten there a couple times in the past.
I wonder if it would be sacrilegious if I went to Flanders instead of the Fish Tale (which I always stop at when in the area)...
My wife and I stayed at the Griswold once and loved it.
Gillette Castle - that's the name of it!
You can get a great shave there.
I was going to say something about a Brazilian, but then stopped myself ... sort of.
Great summary Don, (I copied and pasted it to a word doc so I can print it as an impromptu guide for the next time I go up there...). ☺
wrightie....my sister and her husband stumbled upon this when they drove to Essex today:
http://www.ctaudubon.org/about/eaglefestival.htm
Events are over but the Bald Eagles are around and the link above will direct you where to watch for them. End of Feb is the slowest time of the year for stores so its a good time to look for free entertainment.
Griswold Inn at Chrismas:
http://www.ctrivervalley.com/images-pictures-photos-of/Winter-in-Connecticut-Snow/2003-winter-photo-pictures/griswold_Inn_essex_CT_1A.jpg
Brits enjoyed its provisions when burning ships at the dock down the street in April of 1814.
The first warship to fight the British was laid down in Essex months before the Declaration of Independence. A 1925 history of the "Oliver Cromwell' is here:
http://www.langeonline.com/Heritage/Maritimehistory.htm
Scroll down for the log of Carpenter mate Timothy Boardman. He relates several captures and how they "kookt" a Great Turtle for 13 gentlemen of the fleet off the Palm Beaches (Abacoa islands).
Oh good lawd, that Griswold Inn photo is scrumptious. I need to move North!
Thank you for all of the great information!
Gillette Castle is the home of William Gillette, a famous Shakespearean actor in the late1800's, he was most famous for playing "Sherlock Holmes", if I recall correctly. My parents had friends that lived "next door" to his home and we spent a week with them when I was a kid......the castle was fantastic! We did not get a regulated "tour", but were taken around by a caretaker.....lots of very interesting items on display.
The part about his castle I liked best besides the unique carved wooden door latches was that Gillette had a mirror arrangement so he could see what guests were arriving from a vantage point on his balcony. If he didn't want to talk to them, he would retreat to his secret hideaway on the third floor (unfortunately no longer open to visitors).
An early version of "Caller ID"!
: )
Or intercom.
