Free admission We parked on street close bye…read moreI enjoyed my visit here, many famous paintings Free audio tour as well Many shops and restaurants near bye

Yale University Art Gallery was absolutely amazing and should be called an Art Museum! Includes an…read moreextensive collection of art from Impressionists, sculptures, contemporary/modern art, Asian art, European, early American and so much more! Yale Gallery is Free and should be visited by all! An excellent and surprise gift to see! Highly recommend!

This place randomly showed up on my Facebook feed, and it looked interesting, so I checked it out…read more I'm not exactly into trolleys and/or trains, but it looked fun, and it was cheap to do. Anyway, you take a short trolley ride, with really not much scenery other than some bald eagle nesting posts. Then you ride back and stop at a site with other vintage trolleys. A neat thing is the seats switch back and forth depending on which way you're going. At the beginning is also a mini museum which you can check out before/after your ride. It's a fun hour or so; one ticket gives you unlimited rides for that day, so it really is a good value.

"Someday I will be in California Go to places movie stars…read morehave been Hollywood and trolley cars and oranges And palm trees bending in the wind" (Chuck Berry) Want to do something different and kind of cool? Take a ride into the past at the Shore Line Trolley Museum. Your adventure begins in the middle of a residential neighborhood at the Sprague Visitor's Center- it's the ticketing office, museum and gift shop. But the real adventure begins just outside the Center's front door where you see a set of train tracks. Hop aboard a 103-year-old trolley car and take a 1.5-mile scenic ride through a salt marsh, past the sandstone quarries, cross over from East Haven into Branford, see a few osprey nests, and spend a half hour or so at the trolley barn for a lesson on the museum's collection of street railway vehicles. There are nearly 100 vintage transit vehicles on site. Our tour guide was a delightful fellow named J. Calvin, and he was a wealth of knowledge as he spoke about the history of public transport, the difference between trolley cars, street cars, and cable cars. We stopped at about a dozen vehicles for a briefing including a horse drawn car and a mail car. We also saw a very chilling exhibit - a NYC subway car that was trapped under a pile of rubble in a tunnel connected to the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. It was in perfect condition and after excavation was sent to Shoreline. I have to give another shoutout to our tour guide who did a great job interacting with the children in our group and made one little boy's day when he asked him to push a button on a pole, to engage the flashing lights, clanging bells and gate for a train crossing.

The tour is about 45 minutes long and it's just ok. It's more about the life of Dr. Harvey Cushing,…read morethe egomaniac who collected brains, than a review of the brains on display. It's free and it should be. Parking is around the corner and $6 for two hours.

What an amazing person to have collected such a unique collection on his undergraduate years of…read morestudy! Highly recommend going and thanking your tour guide if you have one with you- it's not exactly a cheerful place! Try going at the less busy times if possible! Yale also has other great architecture to see, mainly the gothic architecture that was originally modeled after Oxford. Trying to get a sense of the history behind the buildings may very well bring you to the Cushing Center and other places like it! Cameras are allowed so feel free to bring them!

This may be my first review of a museum, but …read more.. This is an amazing collection of historically-important items arranged in a multi-sensory chronology. It looks unassuming from the outside, but expands to tell a really compelling story. The curator/owner, Jeffrey Fletcher, is extremely friendly, knowledgable, and generous with his time. He gave us a guided tour around this extensive collection. This new hidden gem is a must-see if you want to learn a bit about American history and the African-Americans who made it.

This was an amazing exhibition. I am start struck ( no pun intended). I attended the planetarium…read morefor public night it's open to the public free or charge. Really informative and the graphics are beyond amazing.

Still star struck by the wonderful display at Leitner's. Funny thing is, I have lived near this…read moreplace for years and didn't even know it existed. BEST KEPT SCERET IN NEW HAVEN! Leitner's is nestled away behind the Divinity School at Yale. When driving on Prospect Street, you have to go up a long driveway to even see it. Out of curiosity, I decided to see what was up the hill one day, and wha-lah, I stumbled onto a whole planetarium. Neat! The planetarium is open to the public on Tuesday nights and Sunday afternoons (check out the schedule here http://bit.ly/1tEK7PT) for FREE shows. The current shows focus on Black Holes. Our moderator, Angelo, walked us through all of the constellations visible from earth on a clear night, and even tied in some Greek mythology. Interesting presentation. The coolest part was the special effects that allow the audience to zoom into stars, it felt like I was whizzing through space. That was the first half of the presentation, about 30 minutes long. In the second part, they show a movie that delves into the mysteries of black holes. On clear nights, after the show, they offer free viewings of the night sky through their massive telescopes. It was a little hazy on the night I went, but I was still able to see Saturn. It was a great outing for the bargain price of... Free! This would be a great experience for families with children or for lovebirds to hold hands while gazing into the stars (gentleman, tell your lady no star is as radiant as she is and your guaranteed a smooch... You're welcome.). An out of this world experience! I'll be back.

"You tell me that you've heard every sound there is And your…read morebird can sing But you can't hear me You can't hear me" (Lennon & McCartney) Within a stone's throw of mega busy I-95 you'll find this lovely and serene nature walk. You can expect to find a flat and very walkable trail that winds through woods with plenty of pretty water views, boardwalks, and wooden bridges. You'll also see around a dozen informational panels that describe the various species of birds found in the park. One of the first things we saw was one of the coolest things we saw! The founder and first president of the CT Audubon Society was Mabel Osgood Wright, and after her 1934 passing, her will provided for the construction of a free-standing chimney to provide a nesting "home" for her favorite bird - the Chimney Swift. What is the CT Audobon Society? Their website says the Society "protects CT's bords, other wildlife, and their habitats through conservation, education, and advocacy. Founded in 1898, Connecticut Audubon manages 22 wildlife sanctuaries encompassing more than 3,400 acres of open space in Connecticut and educates over 100,000 children and adults annually." There is a museum on site, but it is under renovation and was closed.

We went for a nice long walk in the woods at the Connecticut Birdcraft Museum and Bird sanctuary…read more We were driving near there and saw a sign for it so,we drove straight there. We did hear a lot of birds singing but did not get any photos of them. The grounds were beautiful and an easy drive onto the highway from there. This is the first private bird sanctuary in the United States and the gardens are planted and taken care of by the Fairfield, CT garden club. They do a beautiful job, I am so glad I visited. It was also great to read about the founder of the sanctuary, Mabel Osgood Wright and see the chimney she had erected so a local chimney swift bird could nest there and raise their chicks.

My friend and I took the afternoon tour. Our guide was the grandson of the family driver. He heard…read morestories indirectly from his mother. The guide was extremely knowledgeable. He took use through the main level. The museum director took over into the servants quarters. She also was awesome. The house is well preserved and has many original and period furniture pieces. AC works well on a warm day. The church a mile away is also worth seeing.

If you like touring historic mansions, this place is superb! Our docent Midge was extremely…read moreknowledgeable and an excellent storyteller. She demonstrated a passion for the history of the mansion, the time period, and the complicated inter-relations between the involved individuals which was truly inspired and fascinating. She answered all our tour group's questions with great skill and delight. We reserved our spots online for the 90-minute noon tour today, featuring the first and second floors, the main entertainment rooms, bedrooms, and servants' quarters. On-site parking for free. The mansion has been closed for two years to renovate the electrical/HVAC system and recently reopened for public tours. They'll be opening the basement floor to show the bowling alley and vault sometime next year. If you're in the area on Dec 14, they'll be open for a festive Christmas event.

Did not have the pleasure of entering because it was closed, but the exterior looks nicely…read morepreserved and the surrounding environs make for a pleasant walk.