Experience the best of New Haven

New Haven stands on Long Island Sound at the head of a sheltered harbour, and it was laid out in 1638 as a grid of nine squares around a central green. Three churches of the early nineteenth century sit on the Green, and facing it are the Gothic towers and quadrangles of Yale University, which moved here in 1716 and gives the city much of its character.

The Yale University Art Gallery, the Yale Center for British Art, designed by Louis Kahn, and the Peabody Museum of Natural History are open to the public, and the Beinecke Rare Book Library, with translucent marble walls, holds a Gutenberg Bible. East Rock, a ridge with a summit road and a view over the harbour, and Lighthouse Point Park, with a lighthouse and an old carousel on the Sound, lie within city limits.

Apizza, pronounced ah-beetz, is thin, coal-fired and charred at the edges, and the white clam pie with garlic and chopped clams is the local classic. Oysters were once the harbour's trade. Cherry blossoms line Wooster Square in April, and the autumn term fills the town with students.