Hartford

Hartford is a working state capital that most people drive past on I-91, watching it recede in the rearview mirror between New York and Boston without stopping. That is their loss. The city has genuine cultural weight if you know where to look, and the surrounding region — West Hartford Center, the Connecticut River valley, Litchfield Hills wine country to the west, Mystic on the coast — makes it a credible anchor for a Connecticut weekend. The Mark Twain House and Museum is the anchor attraction and it delivers. Twain built the Victorian Gothic mansion in 1874 to impress his wife Olivia, loved it so much he called it the happiest years of his life, and wrote Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Prince and the Pauper at the desk inside. The house is extraordinary — elaborate Eastlake woodwork, stenciling by Tiffany's firm, a billiard room on the top floor where Twain wrote in smoke-filled seclusion, and a conservatory off the dining room that Olivia filled with plants year-round. Harriet Beecher Stowe's house sits literally next door, part of the same Nook Farm literary community, and the combination of the two on a single visit is a legitimate half-day. The Wadsworth Atheneum on Main Street is the oldest continuously operating public art museum in the United States — opened in 1842 — and it is substantially better than most visitors expect. The collection runs from Hudson River School landscapes to Baroque European masters to a serious holdings of American modernism, and its Salvador Dalí collection is one of the stronger concentrations outside of Spain. The building itself is a Gothic Revival castle in downtown Hartford, which is not what you expect when you turn off I-91. West Hartford Center is what most people actually mean when they say they're going out in Hartford. It is a dense, walkable commercial district about two miles west of downtown — good independent restaurants, a Saturday morning farmers market in season, coffee shops that are actually good, bars that stay open at a reasonable adult hour. It feels like a small New England town transplanted inside a metropolitan area, and it is the neighborhood where the surrounding suburbs go to have a life. The Connecticut Science Center on the riverfront is underrated for families — interactive, modern, with Connecticut River exhibits that are stronger than the building's anonymous exterior suggests. Post-industrial Hartford has real challenges downtown after dark — be honest about that. The areas around the Wadsworth and the Mark Twain House are fine and well-trafficked; some downtown blocks are not the kind you want to wander after dinner without a destination in mind. West Hartford solves this problem entirely. The day trip radius is exceptional. Mystic, 90 minutes southeast, has Mystic Seaport Museum (a living history maritime village, genuinely absorbing) and Mystic Aquarium (one of the better aquariums on the East Coast, with a beluga whale program and serious shark tanks). New Haven is 45 minutes down I-91 and contains two things worth a detour: the Yale campus, which is free to walk and legitimately beautiful, and Frank Pepe's Pizzeria Napoletana on Wooster Street, which serves the white clam pizza that serious pizza people treat as a pilgrimage destination. Litchfield Hills, an hour west on Route 202, is Connecticut's wine country — rolling hills, stone walls, Hopkins Vineyard on Lake Waramaug, and fall foliage in October that is among the best color in New England.