Branford, Thursday Afternoon

I was in Branford recently with Elizabeth of Connecticut Day Trips, and the fact that it was a miserable day weather-wise didn't stop us from checking out the downtown area, something I'd wanted to do since the last time I drove through here and remembered how nice it was.

Branford is like its neighbor Guilford in that its center is bypassed by Route 1. Which means that if you got off the highway here and drove through town on local roads, you could still easily miss the best parts. In a taxonomy I just invented, that's one of two types of shoreline town; the other type is like Mystic or Madison, where Route 1 = Main Street, and the quickest non-95 route forces you to pass through the section where they keep all the charm. I'm sure this distinction has all kinds of deep implications for tourism and development, but since I just came up with it, I don't know what those might be.

More on downtown Branford soon, though there may be a few more shorter posts first while I work on, well, the rest of my life.