Litchfield County is both rural and bourgeois, and its attendant pleasures are a mix of high and low: Millionaires' Row just north of Sharon and manure on your boots; mosquitoes, poison ivy, and blackberries in the backyard as well as handmade Belgian chocolates; working-class Torrington and twee Litchfield; well-chosen antiques and the junk shops just outside town; over-the-top inns and everyday farms. By car, this corner of the world seems relatively compact; it takes no longer than a half hour to get from one town to the next and frequently less. The roads, even the main highways that make a triangle through the area—routes 7, 202, and 44—generally have only two lanes, and they follow the contours of the land rather than the convenience of commuters. Town clusters notwithstanding, the area affords lots of privacy and quiet moments. Over the course of a year, we went back several times. Not more than two hours from New York City, where we live, Litchfield County is an easy place to spend a weekend or a month at any time of year.

Driving up through Kent, on Route 7, I stop at the Belgique Patisserie & Chocolatier. Who would think that in a small town in the foothills of the Berkshires there would be a serious traditional pastry shop? Extravagant cakes, glistening fruit jellies, individual chocolates—a general drool-fest. A representation of Proust's madeleine practically falls in my lap. Honoring the master of memories here is irresistible. What is it that we're looking for as we travel? There is always something just a bit beyond our grasp, a memory on the tip of the tongue; travel has the ability to evoke the past and even loss. Many of the lovely and cultivated areas we visit are places where we can pleasurably seek these half-forgotten memories that create nostalgia.

And so northwest Connecticut, lavishly bucolic with hill and dale, farm and mansion, is like some fairy tale of European history, with squires and horses, fields of corn and perhaps wheat, cream and fresh eggs—a tactile connection to the land experienced by gentleman and farmer. It's a barely remembered world that suggests safety, peace, and quiet, a place and time of nursery rhymes where you wouldn't be surprised to see kings picking cabbages and where drama is on the order of A. A. Milne's Alderney suggesting that His Majesty might like marmalade instead. Even if you've never been here, you can arrive and feel as though you've seen it all your life.

For instance, if you come into West Cornwall—not to be confused with Cornwall or Cornwall Bridge, all three of which are less than five miles apart—from the west, you must drive across the Housatonic River through a little red covered bridge. Although the vernacular may read Shrek, Disney has not been here: The bridge dates from 1864. What makes this country village, all weathered red and white, so perfect is that, in addition to its beauty, it has some of the trappings of big city life, only miniaturized. Old train tracks run through the middle of town, and in the old railroad station is a thrift shop called the Little Benefit Shop. Just across the street is a tiny French restaurant so excellent, exclusive, and chic that it eschews even the slightest publicity (Sam Waterston, of all people, apparently occasionally supplies the beef—who even knew he was a farmer!). Add a post office, reproduction Shaker furniture for sale above the pottery shop, a gallery or two, other spots to eat, a farmers' market on Saturday mornings, and a bookshop. With a rose geranium growing just by the entrance, Barbara Farnsworth Bookseller is full of nooks and comfy corners, with books more or less everywhere. We lingered there, doing nothing special, until our group started feeling peckish. The sun had come out, so we trundled a few steps down the road to sit outside at the Wandering Moose Cafe and eat waffles and watch the river and various people running by.