1. Traveler Restaurant
City: Union, CT
Category: Restaurants
Telephone: (860) 684-4920
Address: 1257 Buckley Hwy.
Description: Ever want a free book with your meal? If so, the Traveler Restaurant on the border of Massachusetts is your dream store. Started in 1970 by Marty Doyle, a voracious reader himself who loved to give his guests books, this restaurant with a simple pine-walled dining room and porch is unique. Doyle’s habit of giving each guest a book snowballed, and new owners kept it going. Check out the walls, where letters from authors hang, lauding the experiment. And these days you can make your own choice among the bookshelves. The food? Oh, yes. Try the turkey; it’s their specialty, unless you count the books.
2. Bigelow Hollow State Park
City: Union, CT
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (860) 684-3430
Description: Right on the state line is a remarkable state park, with 3 large ponds and a series of interesting ridges. There are 17 miles of blue-blazed trails, as well as others (yellow and white) around the ponds and connecting the larger paths. If you want an easy walk with a great result, take the connector trail (more of a woods road) from the parking area at the north end of Bigelow Pond and head up to Breakneck Pond. This thin glacial valley with hills on both sides is like nothing else in Connecticut. You can launch your boat on Bigelow Pond or the much larger Mashapaug Pond in the northwest corner of the park. Beavers live here, and you can hear the slap of their tails in the ponds. You can fish in the ponds, and huge pike live in this area, an exciting struggle for any fisherman.
3. Nipmuck Trail
City: Union, CT
Category: Tours & Attractions
Telephone: (860) 684-3430
Description: This fairly remote trail connects Mansfield Hollow to Bigelow Hollow, running south to north in Tolland County. There is also another southern branch that starts at Puddin’ Lane, 0.5 mile west of Route 195. The main Nipmuck is mostly along the Fenton River, under canopies of lofty pines, with the most interesting section near Gurleyville. Many people have seen flying squirrels here. Almost 2 miles south of Gurleyville Road you’ll find the ruin of the Old Gurleyville Grist Mill, built in the 1700s and one of only three in New England. It’s open on Sun in the summer from 1 to 5 p.m. In the Yale Forest section, the trail crosses the dirt Boston Hollow Road in a fascinating narrow notch (worth biking along for sure). The section of the Nipmuck between Iron Mine Lane and Eastford Road, close to where it connects to the Natchaug Trail, is part of the original Great Trail that connected Boston and Hartford, the route Thomas Hooker came on when he founded the Connecticut Colony in 1636.