Yale's Hometown Makes Funky Fall Getaway

Oct. 3 -- Aah, autumn in New England.

Each year, the region's flinty hills are crowded with visitorsin search of crisp apples, spicy cider doughnuts, fields ofpick-your-own pumpkins and colorful foliage, set off against whitechurch steeples and brilliant blue skies.

As a native New Englander myself, I love the season and sop upas much of it as I can.

But there's only so much cider-sipping and leaf-peeping you cando before you start to wonder what else the New England autumnscene might offer.

How about tangy Malaysian food with vintage French wines,cutting-edge theater or dance-til-you-drop clubs? Or colonial andblack American history? Rare art from the British Isles? Thepurported birthplaces of pizza and hamburgers?

Art and Cultural Capital of Connecticut

You get all that, and the colored leaves, too, in New Haven —located about two hours from Boston, New York and the quaint townsof southern Vermont.

New Haven bills itself as Connecticut's arts and culturecapital. These bragging rights are impossible to verify, but thecity does boast three nationally renowned theaters, five museums, asymphony orchestra and other musical groups, galleries, festivals,monumental architecture and dozens of restaurants with globalflavors.

For the traveler to Olde New England, the city also has loads ofhistory. Its roots date from 1638, when a group of Puritans sailedinto the harbor in search of land to build a Christian utopia.

They built their city in a grid of nine squares, with a centralsquare called the green. New Haven's design is the ancestor ofplanned cities from New York to Paris.

The green is still an open, public space today and it has threechurches in a row, two with the postcard-requisite white steeple.Center Church on the Green was built on part of the colonialburying ground and has a not-to-miss crypt.

Colonial New Haven hosted three famous fugitives — the threejudges who signed the death warrant for King Charles I of England.Two of them were hidden in a cave at the top of West Rock, animposing geological formation that houses a state park.

Visitors can still see the cave and enjoy a glorious vantagepoint for fall foliage. A road through the park is open Thursdaysthrough Sundays through leaf season; hikers can go in anytime.

Check Out Yale's Secret Society

For the blue-blooded and academically gifted, New Haven issynonymous with Yale University.