Afternoon in Connecticut

There are few things nicer than dining al fresco on a breezy summer afternoon, especially if you can drop your picnic basket beneath a huge oak tree with incomparable views of the late-August sea and rolling wide lawns disappearing into the blue Atlantic. Harkness Memorial State Park in northern Connecticut was recently the gorgeous site of a lazy Cafe Drake picnic, and combined with an Italianate villa and manicured walled gardens, the perfect location for a city escape.