Connecticut (kuh-NEH-tih-kut) is diverse.

The southwest feels like part of greater New York City. The southern shoreline is beautiful, historic, crowded, and commercially important.

Southeastern Connecticut has several charming coastal towns, and gleaming casino-resorts rising Oz-like from forest and farmland. Hartford is a capital of insurance and commerce, with several fine museums. The Northeast and Northwest are quiet and rural.

Although Connecticut has many lovely New England towns, the most popular places to visit are along the shoreline:

— New Haven, home of Yale University

— Guilford, founded in 1639, pretty and peaceful

— Old Lyme, Essex and other fine old towns at the mouth of the Connecticut River

— New London & Groton, submarine capital of the world

— Mystic Seaport, the re-creation of an old Connecticut maritime village and, nearby several vineyards

— The Southeast's gleaming gambling meccas of Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun stand in stark contrast to the old-fashioned charm of seaside Stonington

— Hartford is worth a short visit for its historic sites and fine museums

— Western Connecticut is perfect for a leisurely scenic drive, a visit to a vineyard, and a swim in a beautiful glacial lake.

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The Constitution State ( so called because Connecticut was the first American colony to have a written constitution) is sprinkled liberally with lakes, rivers, and streams.

The state's namesake is the mighty Connecticut River, which springs from the Connecticut Lakes in northern New Hampshire, flows southward forming the boundary between New Hampshire and Vermont, cuts through Massachusetts and Connecticut, finally to empty into Long Island Sound.

The great river is navigable as far north as Hartford, a significant fact that was not lost on the region's Native American inhabitants. They were the ones who gave it the name Quinnehtukqut, "the long tidal river."

Almost three-quarters of the territory in Connecticut is woodland, and drives along the back roads through these forests reveal rich fields of corn, grain, vegetables, and tobacco. But the state's wealth comes not from agriculture, or from tourism, but rather from insurance and manufacturing.

In the old days the state's production of buttons, pins, doo-dads, and kitchenwares gave rise to the breed of men known as Yankee peddlers, who traveled from town to town in horse and buggy, spreading the products of Connecticut's industry far and wide. Later Connecticut Yankees such as Charles Goodyear, Eli Whitney, Seth Thomas, and Mr. Fuller (of Fuller Brush fame) pave the way for today's Connecticut products: helicopters, submarines, insurance, firearms and high-tech.

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