Hanging Hills & Route 77 to Guilford

From the Meriden hills to Long Island Sound: leave from the lower lot at Hubbard Park, cross Meriden on CT-66 to Higby Mountain, drop through Middlefield and Lyman Orchards to Durham and take all of CT-77, a state scenic road, down to the Guilford green. It's 27 miles one way, with lakes and orchards along the way. The climb to Castle Craig is an optional detour and only opens in season. Watch the downtown Meriden traffic at the start.

The Hanging Hills are trap rock ridges, basalt from lava flows about 200 million years old, and their West Peak, at 1,024 feet, is the high point of the Metacomet Ridge in Connecticut. On East Peak stands Castle Craig, a stone tower dedicated in 1900 and given to the city by Walter Hubbard, who also laid out the park with the Olmsted Brothers. The road up to the tower is a dead end that opens only in season, from May 10 to October 30, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., so it's an optional detour from the lower lot and not part of the route.

Past Middlefield you go by Lyman Orchards, a family farm since John and Hope Lyman bought their first 37 acres in 1741. From Durham, CT-77 follows the Guilford and Durham Turnpike, chartered in 1824 as a private toll road, and the whole route is a designated state scenic road, running beside Lake Quonnipaug on the way down. It ends on the Guilford green: the town was founded in 1639, and half a mile south stands the Henry Whitfield House, the oldest house in Connecticut.