Old Lyme, CT Restaurants, Restaurant Menus & Dining
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             To those who are not familiar with Connecticut, the designation Lyme might refer to the misspelling of a fruit whose juice you would squeeze into Mexican beer.  Or it might be the correct spelling of a dread disease.  However we Connecticutites, particularly those familiar with the eastern shoreline, know that Old Lyme, as well as Lyme, East Lyme, South Lyme, and Hadlyme) are towns, and particularly attractive towns at that. Along with another “Old,” Saybrook to be exact, Old Lyme stands where the Connecticut River flows into Long Island Sound.  Shallow water sandbars prohibited ship navigation, making the Connecticut the only major river in the U.S. without an urban port, and also creating some distinctly beautiful ecological phenomena.  To begin with, there is Griswold Point. This shallow saltwater estuary, a sand spit, offers a great place to picnic and a refuge for nesting piping plovers (endangered species) and least terns (threatened species). Paddling a kayak into the twisting channels of this Great Island Wildlife Management Area will definitely bring you to a place of wonder and an exceptional escape from it all, what ever your particular “it” happens to be. Further up the River are the Lord’s Cove and Roger Tory Peterson wetlands restoration areas.  But if you do want to spend some time indoors in Old Lyme, there is a very special place to do it and that is The Florence Griswold Museum, the home of American Impressionism and the site of the Old Lyme Art Colony.  This 1817 Georgian Mansion was the home of the remarkable Florence Griswold (1850 – 1937) who in the late 1890s opened her home to a group of talented painters and formed the art colony.  The Museum features their work in a fitting setting.  And you don’t have to stay indoors.  The house is surrounded by lovingly restored gardens that lead down to a picturesque site on the Lieutenant River.

All in all, quite a place to visit or live.