Connecticut is a mixture of town and country; beyond the towns and major cities inhabited by New York commuters are quiet colonial villages set in a rural landscape.

The third-smallest State in the USA, Connecticut has a rich literary history. Hartford was the home of Mark Twain, and tourists can visit The Mark Twain House, at Nook Farm, where he wrote his greatest work, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, in 1884. Next door is the cottage in which the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, lived until her death in 1896, also open for tours.