It's a small museum. There's plenty of parking. It shares a lot with the YMCA. If you need a spot…read more We saw a psychedelic Hart exhibit, which was great. There's some people getting married while we were there. We also saw some general art, and there was also a Ted Williams, exhibit which we didn't go to Yankee fans and we forgot about it. If there was an Aaron judge exhibit, we would've gone to that.

This is a gem - interactive exhibition- children's break tables in almost every gallery- very…read morecontemporary exhibition- with both local and international artists Events are very important- from Victorian death jewelry- to art book clubs

Oh heck yes, radio is a hobby of mine (amateur, collecting and listening), a profession (US Navy…read moreRadioman), and passion! I've been four times. First, was with my wife, and the rest with an amateur radio friend, AA1G, a fellow "Ham" as we say. The owner/collector/host guy is a retired teacher. Made a life of collecting antique sets. Kind of went from there and then grew out of control. Phonographs, audiophile, computers, and two way. Though no Scanners... darn shame. Walk in, sign the book, pay a modest fee, and walk through a timeline of telegraph, telephones, movie making, victrolas, radio, television, stereo equipment, and computers. You might hear them light up a jukebox box. You can watch cartoons they broadcast on their Transmitter to TV sets within the museum. A wonderful, operational, ham radio club too. W1VCM. You can operate the boat anchors to modern rigs. Lots of geek terms in that sentence- IYKYK. A really wonderful take. It is the owner's personal collection. The Atwater-Kent breadboards were my personal favorite. They host Examinations to be come a licensed amateur radio operator, Ham Flea Markets, educational services, elderly education, and local events on-site. It is a big building. Sensory overload. You will need to go a couple two three times. No negatives. Make a cash donation. Leave a radio - if they don't display it, they can sell it to keep operations going. Lots of wonderful volunteers too - many from the American Radio Relay League right down the road. 73s

Very cool place if you're into the history of radio and music players. Tour guides know a lot too…read more I have been twice. I recommend it.

Booked the Living History Tour which lasted ~70 minutes and was led by a costumed actor. Even…read morethough it was raining, we enjoyed this experience. Our actor/tour guide portrayed Katie, one of the servants in the house. She told interesting stories and facts about Mark Twain, his family and the house. Pictures were not allowed during the tour except at the last part/basement and outside the house. Parking was not a problem as there was a lot before entering the museum which can lead to Mark Twain's house. There's a 20+ minute introductory video (separate from the tour) that you can see in the museum. The gift shop has magnets, t-shirts, other clothes, books, toys, pins, snacks, etc. There's also a cafe in the museum. This house/museum is about 20 minutes away from Bradley International (Hartford) airport. Would recommend this tour!

Visited the adult home of this famous child of the Mississippi River, during the final days of our…read moretrip to Connecticut. It was a very enjoyable experience. My wife and I were flying out of the Hartford airport (Bradley International) to go back home, so decided to spend the day before in the area. A popular tourist attraction is the Mark Twain (two fathoms or 12 feet deep) House & Museum, so decided to center our day around that. Maps will take you right to it, passing by large and beautiful homes from the turn of the (19th) century. The end destination was a large parking with plenty of spaces on a Friday afternoon. Daily hours are 9:30 - 5:30, with seeing the house only available through guided tours, so it was recommended to pre-reserve slots online. There are two versions of the tour, both guided but with the less frequent Living History Tour being led by a cosplay actor. We arrived at 11:20 and was able to get tickets for the 11:30 normal tour (on this day, the normal tour had hours at 9:45, 10:30, 11:00, 11:30, 12:00, 1:00, 1:30, 2:00, 3:00, 3:30, 4:00, and 4:15). Because the tour lasts about an hour, there were multiple groups in the house at the same time, but it is big enough to absorb the three concurrent groups, all seeing different parts of the home. The entire home is maintained only by ticket admission ($28 adult, $26 senior, $15 children). This was the home where he spent the most productive 17 years of his life, raising his three daughters with his wife, and writing his classics, including Huckleberry Finn. The house tour included all four stories of his home, with complete restoration being just completed in 2016. Rules: no photos or videos inside the house; don't touch anything, stay in same room as guide at all times, and no food/drink. The house was built with forced air vents, and the AC was working well within the house this day. Upstairs on the second floor was the living area, and the 3rd story attic was where Twain had his offices. The basement were the servant quarters. The entire house was fully furnished with either originals or faithful reproductions. We later learned that much of it had been given away initially, but the restoration brought much of it back. There are no elevators in the Twain home. In the visitor center, anybody could enjoy a 20 minute version of Mark Twain documentary by Ken Burns. The most celebrated Mark Twain actor was Hal Holbrook (he played a mean Lincoln too), and his very familiar voice could be heard quite a bit throughout. The souvenir shop in the visitor center had a variety of things related to his life, but to the hobby of reading for pleasure in general. There were distinctive wallpaper patterns inside the house (our favorite was that of a honeybee colony), and the same patterns could be purchased as paper in the gift shop. Because the main house is on elevated ground, one story above the visitor center, there are two parking areas. The main one near the visitor center is what Maps will guide you to, whereas the much smaller one south of the house at the same elevation is meant for handicapped spots and being much smaller, will fill up. We did see if we could walk from this parking area via local roads, but found it was much easier to just go back from where we came. We spent about 2 hours here, and saw what we wanted to see. We both felt it's well worth visiting.

We had the most amazing visit to the CT Trolley Museum. We came with a group, including children,…read moreand easily spent two and a half hours here. We could definitely have stayed longer, but alas, they were closing. The museum offers trolley rides with paid admission. You will be given trolley tickets, and the motorman will 'punch' the ticket for each ride. Trolleys leave on the hour and they have two different trolleys they alternate using. One has sides and windows (like a bus), the other is open on the sides (more like a San Fran. street car). Each ride lasts about thirty minutes, there and back again and we rode both trolleys so an hour of our visit was on the trolleys. A scavenger hunt is available for the kids and they loved it! Clip boards with the list of questions and pencils are located in the museum for the child to use during their hunt. Areas where you will find the answer to a questions have a big star on them and the question number. The kids were so excited to bring their answer sheets to the employee in the gift shop. She pulled out her answer key and 'graded' each paper making sure everyone had all the answers correct! Once a paper was graded, the child got to choose a trolley coin and were told those coins are rare! Only scavenger hunt participants get a coin, you can't buy them, so guard it well! Also for children is a Lego area, a dress up area, a kid sized wooden trolley they can play in, hand-held wooden trollies to play with, arts and crafts and other kid activities. There is even a reading nook off to one side in a sunny corner. The static display trolleys are very interesting. I especially enjoyed the snow sweeper trolley and the three wheeled, one person, conveyance. It's really too bad trolleys went 'out of fashion'. They covered so much ground and were a convenient way to get where you were going before the advent of the automobile. Your museum trolley ride includes information about historic local service that was quite interesting too. If you have time, there is a fire truck and apparatus museum in another building behind the trolley museum. A tour guide there will answer any questions and they have a lot of fire truck knowledge. Very interesting! We did leave a donation in the boxes in both buildings and we made some purchases in the gift shop to help support the mission. Most of the staff are volunteers, so if they do a good job and improve the quality of your visit, feel free to tip them. Not needed, but I'm sure it's appreciated. The kids want to return for their autumn pumpkin patch event. I want to return for their Christmas light event! Bring a warm blanket and cozy up with the kids! Sound like good winter fun to me. Parking on site with handicap spots near the entrance. Paved pathway to the building. You will have to hop up onto the trolley to ride. Restrooms were clean. Water fountain and bottle filling station are inside along with two vending machines for snacks. This is an excellent stop for all ages.

We celebrated my son's 2nd birthday here, and they we so accommodating! The room was already set up…read morewith tables and tablecloths. We were able to bring in our own food and dessert. The staff was very friendly and very easy to deal with. We were a little worried about going over the limit for guests, but everyone was able to get a Trolley ride! They even let all the children pull the whistle, which they absolutely loved! The price was very reasonable, and they even opened up the museum part so the children could play and take a bunch of great photos! This children all received party favors of one free future Trolley ride. My advice is to get a membership for an even more amazing deal! Our party guests exclaimed that this was the most fun they've ever had at a birthday party! Great job!

I spent most of my youth growing up in Bristol and I think I only went to the Carousel Museum one…read moretime. Now, as a grown adult who lives thousands of miles away in Los Angeles, it was time to revisit this place on a recent trip back to the nutmeg state. My wife and I ended up coming here on a Wednesday morning because we collect museum magnets and we figured Bristol was a fun little spot to grab one of these. The building itself is insanely beautiful and gave me some wild flashbacks. From the moment we walked into this place to the second we left we are surrounded by hundreds of beautiful vintage carousels from the 1800's up to more recent times. On top of having the carousel's themselves they had binders with info on everything so you could absolutely learn every possibly detail about these things and that's so cool. On top of the carousels, they had a big section dedicated to Lake Compounce which is where I practically lived as a kid. It was super interesting to see photos from the original park, old photos of the Wildcat Coaster from back in the day, and a ton of old photos and memorabilia from old rides and the park itself. Are we done? No, they also had a fire museum upstairs and even though it's not something that really interests me, it was still a cool little bonus at the end of our tour. Overall, The Carousel Museum is such a cool spot and definitely somewhere everyone in Connecticut should go to at least once. It was really cool getting to see some of the same pieces I saw as a little kid 30+ years later. This was a wonderful time.

What a cool place! I loved learning about the carousel making process, admiring all the cool art…read morepieces, and getting a little history at the same time. I never realized how much work goes into making a carousal ride and character happen. You can see so many unique pieces from horses to lobsters! There's even a real carousel from Italy that kids and adults and ride and a really robust kid play area. The museum does hold events although I must caveat the overall vibe can be a little creepy. Not in a ghost way, but more like the artists can give a bit of that old school odd feel. Make sure you visit before booking an event, but there must be a venn diagram between people who love the vibe here and people who love halloween / eccentric things! There's a smaller event space downstairs (up to about 30 people) and the large event space upstairs must hold 150+ people comfortably.

Great art gallery. Amazing artists represented by a curator that is as passionate about the work…read moreas the artists. Not to be missed when visiting Simsbury.

It's technically the Wood Memorial Library & Museum. Impressive collections of Native American…read moreartifacts, taxidermy collections of local birds, artwork, and early American furniture by accomplished artists and craftsmen. Wish they were open more than two days a week! Mondays 11-5pm, Thursdays 10-4pm. The Wood makes the CT River Valley proud!

The Wood is open on Mondays 11am-5pm and Thursdays 10am-4pm, by appointment and for special events…read more Great place for music, children's storytelling. Check www.wmlm.org or facebook @woodlibraryandmuseum

"Well, we all say that we'll quit someday When our ship…read morecomes in, we'll just sail away But we're just blowin' smoke" (Kacey Musgraves) When you think of Connecticut, I bet Mystic Pizza, Yale University, and the Stepford Wives may cross your mind before tobacco does. But cigar tobacco has been a big player in Connecticut's economy since colonial times. Not the kind of tobacco you find inside the cigars, but the kind of tobacco you find as a wrapper on the outside of cigars. You can learn about Connecticut's history of cigar-tobacco agriculture by visiting this free museum. It's housed in two separate buildings smack in the center of Northwest Park in Windsor, CT. You'll see scores of exhibits in an old tobacco curing barn (mostly tobacco farming equipment). The second building is newer with photographs, and wall panels describing the history and harvesting of the crop. The crown jewel of this building is an enormous display case filled with hundreds of very cool cigar boxes. One of the volunteers from the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Historical Society walked us from one building to the next and pretty much acted as a personal and very personable tour guide. If you're in the area, and think you can find a better off-beat museum that's both interesting, and free, you're just blowin' smoke.

The worker I met was pretty cool. The museum is a nice place to visit for some local history. Just…read morebe sure to come when they are open, as the museum has different hours/days of operation than the park that it is in has.