1,000 Places to See Before You Die

by Patricia Schultz

  America’s Maritime Museum

  MYSTIC SEAPORT

  Mystic, Connecticut, U.S.A.

  Mystic is one of the Northeast’s most visited villages, thanks to Mystic Seaport, the country’s largest maritime museum. Much of its 17-acre riverfront site encompasses a re-created coastal village that brings salty 19th-century seafaring America to life. Among the many fully rigged sailing ships open for visits is the Charles W. Morgan (1841), the world’s last surviving wooden whaling ship. The kid-popular Mystic Aquarium & Institute for Exploration offers some 70 live exhibits of sea life and a vast outdoor beluga whale exhibit.

  Mystic’s only waterfront hotel, the Steamboat Inn, is a charmer, stylishly blending nautical and contemporary design. Ten of its 11 rooms have romantic river views, while six feature fireplaces. Sip sherry in the cozy common room after spending the day antiquing or browsing the nearby shops and galleries.

  It’s just another 5 miles to little-known Stonington, one of New England’s most endearing coastal communities. First settled in 1649, the town has leafy streets lined with sea captains’ houses and churches. Follow the fragrance of the sea down Water Street, which leads to an early-19th-century lighthouse. Stop at Noah’s, a homey spot known for its sweet rolls and homemade clam chowder, or have a drink at the dockside Dog Watch Café. Several of the 18 rooms at the posh Inn at Stonington overlook the harbor, some with private decks.

  WHERE: 130 miles northeast of New York City. VISITOR INFO: mysticcountry.com. MYSTIC SEAPORT: Tel 888-973-2767 or 860-572-5315; www.mysticseaport.org. MYSTIC AQUARIUM: Tel 860-572-5955; www.mysticaquarium.org. STEAMBOAT INN: Tel 860-536-8300; www.steamboatinnmystic.com. Cost: from $160 (off-peak), from $240 (peak). NOAH’S: Tel 860-535-3925; www.noahsfinefood.com. Cost: dinner $35. DOG WATCH CAFÉ: Tel 860-415-4510; www.dogwatchcafe.com. INN AT STONINGTON: Tel 860-535-2000; www.innatstonington.com. Cost: from $160 (off-peak), from $180 (peak). BEST TIMES: late May for Lobsterfest; Jun for Sea Music Festival; Jul for Antique and Classic Boat Rendezvous; mid-Oct for Chowderfest; Dec for Lantern Light Tours.

  Family Legacies of the du Ponts and Wyeths

  BRANDYWINE VALLEY

  Delaware and Pennsylvania, U.S.A.

  The lush Brandywine Valley, an area dotted with manicured gardens, historic estates, and fascinating small museums, straddles Delaware’s border with Pennsylvania. No state is more closely associated with a single family than Delaware is with the du Ponts: The grand houses they built here gave rise to the area’s nickname “Chateau Valley,” and no trip to the region is worth taking without glimpsing the magnificence they left behind.

  The du Pont story begins at the Hagley Museum. It was here in the early days of the 19th century that French émigré Eleuthère Irénée du Pont constructed a riverside house and the first of his gunpowder mills outside Wilmington, structures that eventually grew into a 235-acre complex. In 1910, just across the river, E. I.’s great-grandson Alfred Irénée du Pont built Nemours, his Louis XVI–style mansion, and filled it with imported furniture, rare rugs and tapestries, and museum-quality works of art. Its formal French garden is the largest of its kind in North America.

  It was Henry Francis du Pont, another great-grandson of E.I.’s, who was responsible for Winterthur, perhaps the most visited of the family estates. In the late 1920s, he transformed what began as a rather modest 12-room home into an eight-story châteaulike spread. Today it is considered the world’s premier museum of 17th- to 19th-century American antiques and decorative arts, with some 85,000 objects arrayed in 175 period rooms. Horticulture was his passion, and visitors today can also visit 60 acres of glorious gardens (a fraction of their original size) accessible via the Garden Tram, including the fairy-tale Enchanted Woods. Meticulously restored and flower-decked Montchanin Village, once part of the Winterthur estate and home to du Pont powder-mill workers, has been reborn as a luxury inn and spa, with former residences divvied up into 28 suites, some with fireplaces and private patios. The old blacksmith shop now houses Krazy Kat’s restaurant, where the décor is whimsical but the new-French menu is big-city sophisticated. Visitors looking for more swank can opt to stay at the gilded Hotel du Pont in nearby Wilmington. Fashioned after a Renaissance palazzo, it was built in 1903 for those who came to do business with the family.

  The du Pont trail continues just 20 minutes across the Pennsylvania border at the Longwood estate and its 1,050-acre, fountain-studded gardens, the personal fantasy of Pierre’s. Every season is celebrated here (with an emphasis on Christmas) in myriad outdoor as well as indoor displays.

  A family legacy of another kind can be found a bit farther east, at the Brandywine River Museum. A Civil War–era gristmill here houses three generations worth of art by the Wyeths. At N. C. Wyeth’s nearby house and studio, The Homestead, the painting he was working on at the time of his death is on display.

  Connecting all the dots is the 25-mile Brandywine Valley Scenic Byway, which begins in Wilmington (“last stop to freedom” on the Underground Railroad) and winds not only past the du Pont estates but the Brandywine Battlefield, where the largest battle of the Revolutionary War took place on September 11, 1777.

  Winterthur’s Montmorenci Stair Hall contains an elegant spiral staircase that spans two stories.

  WHERE: Wilmington is 28 miles southwest of Philadelphia. VISITOR INFO: www.visitwilmingtonde.com; www.thebrandywine.com. HAGLEY MUSEUM: Tel 302-658-2400; www.hagley.org. NEMOURS: Tel 800-651-6912 or 302-651-6912; www.nemoursmansion.org. When: closed Jan–Apr. WINTERTHUR: Tel 800-448-3883 or 302-888-4600; www.winterthur.org. MONTCHANIN VILLAGE: Tel 800-269-2473 or 302-888-2133; www.montchanin.com. Cost: from $192. KRAZY KAT’S: Tel 302-888-4200; www.krazykatsrestaurant.com. Cost: dinner $35. HOTEL DU PONT: Tel 800-441-9019 or 302-594-3100; www.hoteldupont.com. Cost: from $159 (off-peak), from $259 (peak). LONGWOOD GARDENS: Tel 800-737-5500 or 610-388-1000; www.longwoodgardens.org. BRANDYWINE RIVER MUSEUM: Tel 610-388-2700; www.brandywinemuseum.org. BEST TIMES: Apr–May for gardens; Sun of 1st full weekend in May for Winterthur Point-to-Point Steeplechase; Oct–Nov for foliage; Dec for holiday displays.

  A Seaside Escape That’s Not Always on the Map

  AMELIA ISLAND

  Florida, U.S.A.

  Floating off the northeastern tip of Florida and measuring just 13 miles by 2 miles, Amelia Island has over the years been claimed by France, Spain, England, Mexico, the U.S., and the Confederacy. Everyone wanted it, with the exception of railroad tycoon Henry Flagler, who bypassed the island when he opened much of mainland Florida to tourism in 1890. While other Florida vacation spots became fun-in-the-sun theme parks, Amelia Island remained a serene place apart. Today it is a time warp of Victorian beauty.

  Fernandina Beach, located at the barrier island’s northern end, and Amelia’s only town, features a 52-block center listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Some of the nation’s finest examples of Queen Anne, Victorian, and Italianate mansions are here, built for the same wave of wintering socialites who also left their mark on Georgia’s Golden Isles (see p. 756) just north of here. Many of these structures have found a second life as handsome B&Bs, such as the gracious antebellum Williams House, where a large Southern-style breakfast is served on the veranda. On cobbled Centre Street you’ll find galleries, restaurants, and the Palace Saloon, which bills itself as Florida’s oldest bar. It’s one of the unofficial headquarters during the Spring Shrimp Festival, which features boatloads of seafood and fireworks.

  Two state parks showcase Amelia’s unique blend of maritime forest and saltwater marsh. Explore their 13 miles of pristine, white sand beaches on bike or horseback. In late spring and early summer, loggerhead turtles lay their eggs here; in late fall and early winter, whales are frequently spotted on their way to the warm waters of the Caribbean.

  Frequently voted one of the finest resorts in the South, the elegant but family-oriented Ritz-Carlton Amelia Island offers a wide beachfront, tennis, golf on the adjacent championship course at the Golf Club of Amelia Island, and exc
eptional dining-with-a-view at Salt, its acclaimed restaurant. The Omni Amelia Island Plantation, the Ritz’s friendly rival, is situated on 1,350 beachfront acres and boasts its own golf courses designed by Pete Dye and Tom Fazio, along with 23 clay tennis courts and a tennis school. An alternative to the big resorts is the beachfront Elizabeth Pointe Lodge, an 1890s Nantucket-shingle–style inn. The emphasis here is on pure relaxation—of the rocking-chair-on-the-porch variety.

  WHERE: 30 miles northeast of Jacksonville via causeway. VISITOR INFO: www.ameliaisland.com. WILLIAMS HOUSE: Tel 800-414-9258 or 904-277-2328; www.williamshouse.com. Cost: from $195. PALACE SALOON: 904-261-6320; www.thepalacesaloon.com. RITZ-CARLTON: Tel 800-241-3333 or 904-277-1100; www.ritzcarlton.com. Cost: from $250 (off-peak), from $380 (peak); dinner at Salt $55. OMNI AMELIA ISLAND PLANTATION: Tel 888-261-6161 or 904-261-6161; www.omnihotels.com. Cost: from $209 (off-peak), from $339 (peak); greens fees from $150. ELIZABETH POINTE LODGE: Tel 800-772-3359 or 904-277-4851; www.elizabethpointelodge.com. Cost: from $220. BEST TIMES: 1st weekend of May for the Shrimp Festival; spring and early summer for beach fun; spring, fall, and winter for golf and tennis.

  “We choose to go to the moon.”—JFK, SEPTEMBER 12, 1962

  KENNEDY SPACE CENTER

  Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S.A.

  Set amid 140,000 acres of marshland and mangrove swamp, Kennedy Space Center has been the headquarters of American rocketry and space exploration since the launch of the unmanned Bumper 8 research rocket in July 1950. Eleven years later, Alan Shepard lifted off Pad 5 to become the first American in space, and in July 1969 Apollo 11 blasted off from Pad 39A, carrying Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins to the moon. Since then, the base has been home to America’s space shuttle and International Space Station programs; it is currently overseeing unmanned missions to Mars, Jupiter, and beyond.

  Visitor tours begin at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex, which houses a collection of NASA rockets and two IMAX theaters showing films about space exploration that will get your patriotic juices flowing. Various programs offer chances to meet astronauts and tour other sections of the facility. Self-guided tours visit the LC-39 Observation Gantry, with a 360-degree view of the space shuttle launch pads, and the Apollo/Saturn V Center, housing a 363-foot Saturn V, the most powerful rocket ever launched by the U.S.

  The U.S. Astronaut Hall of Fame features the world’s largest collection of astronaut personal memorabilia, plus historic spacecraft, hands-on activities, and astronaut training simulators. Sit at a mission control console or take a virtual ride on Mars in the G-Force Trainer and feel the pull of 4 G’s.

  WHERE: 45 miles east of Orlando. Tel 321-449-4444; www.kennedyspacecenter.com.

  Rubenesque Mermaids on the Gulf Coast

  SWIMMING WITH THE MANATEES

  Crystal River, Florida, U.S.A.

  Their bodies look like zeppelins and they’ve got faces like sad-sack hound dogs, so it must have been the manatees’ plaintive, squealing murmurs that made old-time sailors think they were mermaids, giving them the name sirenia. Mermaids they are not, but these adorable, air-breathing, water-dwelling mammals are endearingly playful and amazingly graceful despite their average 10–12 foot length and 1,000- to 2,000-pound bulk.

  Contact with humans has been devastating for the manatees, which are nearsighted and swim just below the surface, putting them in the deadly path of speedboats. In 1981, former Florida governor Bob Graham and singer/songwriter Jimmy Buffett established the Save the Manatee Club, a nonprofit organization dedicated to research, advocacy, and protection efforts. Though their numbers have increased, they’re not out of danger yet.

  The U.S. population of some 3,000 West Indian manatees, known as sea cows, lives almost exclusively in the warm waters off Florida’s eastern and western coasts, wintering particularly near Citrus County, the only place in the world where you can swim with manatees on a guided tour. A number of outfitters in Crystal River equip visitors with snorkeling gear and provide boat transportation to nearby Kings Bay, where 100 to 250 of the area’s 400 creatures tend to loll. Snorkelers must wait for the manatees to approach—which they almost always do, sometimes nudging their curious visitors as if to say they’re ready for their playdate.

  Gentle manatees find refuge in Kings Bay.

  WHERE: 80 miles west of Orlando. HOW: Crystal Lodge Dive Center offers 2.5-hour guided tours. Tel 352-795-6798; www.manatee-central.com. Cost:$15, gear extra. BEST TIMES: Nov–Feb; morning, when the water is clearest.

  The Home of Speed

  DAYTONA SPEEDWAY

  Daytona Beach, Florida, U.S.A.

  NASCAR racing is said to be the most popular spectator sport in the U.S. In 1947, when racing resumed after the war, Daytona Beach mechanic Bill France organized the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR), then opened the Daytona International Speedway in 1959 on a 480-acre property at the southern end of the eponymous beach. The first Daytona 500 ran in February of that year, with a field of 59 cars, a purse of $67,760, and more than 41,000 spectators. Today it’s the most prestigious stock car race in America, marking the official start of the NASCAR season with 200,000 fans in the stands, another 30 million on TV, and a total purse in excess of $18 million. The two weeks prior, known as Speedweeks, attract thousands for half a dozen races (including the historic Rolex 24 at Daytona sports-car race and the Daytona 500 qualifying rounds) and race-related events galore.

  Daytona has become a mecca for nearly all aspects of motorsports, hosting eight different race weekends annually. In early March, motorcycle enthusiasts gather for Bike Week, a 10-day festival leading up to the Daytona 200, the most important two-wheeled race in the U.S., held annually since 1937. In late December, go-kart enthusiasts flood in for Daytona KartWeek.

  In 1996, the Daytona 500 Experience, “the Official Attraction of NASCAR,” opened at Daytona International, with motion-simulator rides, IMAX movies, and behind-the-scenes tours. For the ultimate thrill, pony up for the Richard Petty Driving Experience. Named for the seven-time Daytona 500 winner, this ride lets race fans slip behind the wheel or be a passenger on the Daytona International track.

  WHERE: 60 miles north of Orlando. Tel 800-748-7467 or 386-254-2700; www.daytonainternationalspeedway.com. When: Speedweeks starts late Jan and ends with the Daytona 500. Bike Week is in early Mar (www.officialbikeweek.com). DAYTONA 500 EXPERIENCE: Tel 386-681-6530; www.daytona500experience.com. RICHARD PETTY DRIVING EXPERIENCE: Tel 800-237-3889; www.drivepetty.com. Cost: from $135.

  River of Grass

  EVERGLADES NATIONAL PARK

  Florida, U.S.A.

  Covering 1.5 million acres and spanning the southern tip of the Florida peninsula, Everglades National Park is just a slice of the great wetland that once stretched north from Florida Bay and is today 120 miles long and 50 miles wide. Called Pa-hay-okee (“grassy waters”) by the Seminole Indians, it is a complex ecosystem that is half land and half water with a bird population that was once so numerous flocks would black out the sky as they rose into the air. Today this region, the only subtropical preserve in North America, is still home to thousands of animal and plant species, tangled mangrove thickets, labyrinthine channels, and hundreds of islands. But its integrity is hanging by a thread following decades of disastrous South Florida water projects and urban sprawl, which have effectively diverted and polluted the steady flow of water the Everglades needs to survive.

  Fortunately, environmentalists have made their voices heard, and government, big agriculture, and conservation groups alike are working to restore the region’s ecological balance. Visitors can explore the peripheral marshland, beginning almost in Miami’s backyard, via air boat, wooden walkways, and bicycle trails, but ideally you’ll want a kayak or canoe and a knowledgeable guide. Despite the drop in the avian population since the 19th century, bird-watching can still be outstanding, especially when the winter’s migratory guests join about 350 resident species. Flora fanciers have some 1,000 species to study beyond the
ubiquitous saw grass. You may even spot some of the swamp’s alligators, hawksbill turtles, manatees, and—if you’re exceedingly lucky—one of the rare Florida panthers who call the park home.

  The snowy egret lives in the Everglades year-round, along with hundreds of other species of birds.

  WHERE: 40 miles southwest of Miami; main park entrance and visitor center just south of Homestead and Florida City. Tel 305-242-7700; www.nps.gov/ever. HOW: North American Canoe Tours offers canoe and kayak rentals, with and without guides, departing from Everglades City. Tel 239-695-4666; www.evergladesadventures.com. Cost: from $35 a day for canoe rental; from $125 per person for 6-hour guided canoe trip. BEST TIME: Dec–Apr, when the climate is relatively dry, the bugs minimal, and the wildlife—especially birds—abundant.

  The American Caribbean

  THE FLORIDA KEYS

  Florida, U.S.A.

  Stretching in a graceful arc from mainland Florida southwest into the Gulf of Mexico, the 800 islands (30 of them inhabited) known as the Florida Keys are connected by the awe-inspiring 128-mile-long extension of Route 1 called the Overseas Highway.