What's with Gungywamp? Tucked in the woods inland from the harbor is one of the strangest-looking places in Connecticut — a hundred-acre site of stone chambers, old foundations, and a double ring of laid stones called Gungywamp, now a State Archaeological Preserve. Because the chambers are low and stone-roofed, and because one of them catches a shaft of sunlight through a small opening at the equinox, the site has drawn a century of romantic theories — Irish monks, Norse voyagers, ancient astronomers. The archaeology tells a quieter story: Native people used this land for thousands of years, and the stone structures themselves are colonial-era — root cellars that worked like early refrigerators, and a double stone circle that was almost certainly a mill for grinding bark or grain. The equinox light through the chamber window is real, and genuinely lovely; the lost civilization is not. Gungywamp is Groton's reminder that the most interesting history is usually the true one.
The Submarine Capital of the World — where the first nuclear submarine slid into the Thames in 1954. Groton, Connecticut sits on the east bank of the Thames River, on a deep-water harbor that has been building and berthing ships for three centuries. It is the place where the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, was launched in 1954 — and where she still floats today, open to anyone who wants to walk her decks at the Submarine Force Museum. Groton has earned the title Submarine Capital of the World for a simple reason: the boats that disappear beneath the world's oceans have been built and based here for generations. But the town's salt runs deeper than steel — back to a 1705 shipbuilding-and-whaling village, and to the hallowed ground of Fort Griswold.
Why People Visit Groton Connecticut
- Tour the free Submarine Force Museum and step aboard the Historic Ship Nautilus, the world's first nuclear submarine, berthed on the Thames.
- Walk the ramparts of Fort Griswold Battlefield State Park and climb the 135-foot Groton Monument for views over the harbor.
- Hike or bike the wooded trails of Bluff Point State Park out to its tidal coves and rocky point.
- Visit Avery Point — the Branford House mansion, the University of Connecticut campus lawns, and Avery Point Light, the last lighthouse built in Connecticut.
- Relax at Eastern Point Beach, a small family cove with breakwater views across the river mouth.
- Take a guided tour of the Gungywamp State Archaeological Preserve to see its colonial stone chambers and double stone circle.
