4 Best Sights in Southwestern Connecticut, Connecticut

The owner of this 19th-century home, wealthy textile merchant Robert Moffat Bruce, bequeathed it to the town of Greenwich in 1908 with the stipulation that it be used "as a natural history, historical, and art museum." Today this diversity remains, reflected in the museum's changing exhibitions—more than a dozen new ones each year—highlighting fine and decorative arts, natural history, and anthropology. On permanent display is a spectacular mineral collection. Kids especially enjoy the touchable meteorite and glow-in-the-dark minerals, as well as the fossilized dinosaur tracks. The gift shop is terrific, too!

Summer visitors congregate at this state park, Connecticut's first, which has a 1½-mile sweep of sandy beach, two picnic areas at the water's edge, sports fields, and several food stands (open seasonally). The on-site nature center offers various programs from bird-watching to nature walks.

Cutting-edge art is not necessarily what you'd expect to find in a stately, 18th-century structure that, by turns, served as a general store, a post office, and, for 35 years, a church. Nicknamed "Old Hundred," this historic building is just part of the vast facility, which includes a 17,000-square-foot exhibition space that puts its own twist on traditional New England architecture. The white-clapboard-and-granite structure houses 12 galleries, a screening room, a sound gallery, a 22-foot-high project space for large installations, a 100-seat performance space, and an education center. Outside is a 2-acre sculpture garden. 

This 5-acre waterfront center, the cornerstone of the city's SoNo district, explores the marine life and maritime culture of Long Island Sound. The aquarium's more than 20 habitats include some 1,000 creatures indigenous to the Sound, including sting rays, sea turtles, harbor seals, river otters, and jellyfish. You can see toothy bluefish and sand tiger sharks in the 110,000-gallon Ocean Beyond the Sound aquarium. The Maritime Aquarium also operates an Environmental Education Center, leads marine-mammal cruises aboard R/V Spirit of the Sound, and has the state's largest IMAX theater.