September 2010 Archives

Fall In Love With Maine's Annual Autumn Spectacular
by Norm Forgey, DayTripNation.com,September 17, 2010

Summer is just about over.  Fall is about to be in the evening air.  It has been a hot summer everywhere.  Where should we go to see some of the great New England fall colors that everyone talks about?

Vermont's Green Mountains?  New Hampshire's White Mountains?  Why not consider the coast of Maine - mix in a little ocean blue, glaciated coastal browns, pine tree greens - and you have an explosion of color that sets off the yellows, reds, and oranges.  And just to make sure that there is enough shoreline to make it worthwhile, consider this:  If you were to walk the entire shore of Maine it would be about a 3,500 mile walk!  There must be a few trees along the way.  In fact, Maine is still 90% forested - the most of any state.

Start your fall adventure at Portland, the largest city in the state with 64,000 people.  Portland has changed little since the late 1800's when it was a bustling northern seaport giving merchant's access to Canada.  As the northern most deep water port, which does not freeze over in winter, it remains an important port today receiving over 70 cruise ships, 200 oil tankers, fishing fleets, and of course lobstermen.  Take a day or two and decompress before your leaf-peeping takes on a life of its own.  See America's only Maritime Observatory on Munjoy Hill.  Visit Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's boyhood home.  Revel in the luxury of Victoria Mansion.  See great American artist's paintings at the Portland Museum of Art.

Are you ready for your immersion into fall colors?  Start your road trip by going north past the town of Bath.  Turn onto Route 144 just south of Wiscasset.  You will find yourself navigating on the islands of Westport and Georgetown.  Don't worry, there are bridges to cross - and these create some of the best color shows around.  Continue to the town of Five Islands on Sheepscot Bay and have a lobster while taking pictures - many pictures!  Travel on to Reid State Park at the end of Georgetown Island.  Walk on the sand beach or the rocky coast - your choice.  What are the blazing red plants covering some of the small islands just off the beach?  Wild blueberry bushes!

Need a break to rest your eyes for a bit?  Try Boothbay Harbor.  You better plan on going into McSeagull's or some other nice restaurant because the harbor is beautiful.  Need just a little more rural scenery?  Drive on down to the tip of Southport Island and visit Newagen.  Did I mention lighthouses?
 

 

Food, fine design, easy access - part of the charm of Portland, Maine
by Christine Tibbetts/The Tifton Gazette August 22, 2010 (permission by author)
tibbetts1@bellsouth.net

What! No lobster?

  Lobster didn't dominate my dinner tables in Portland, Maine, three nights in June.  Certainly is a famous local food, and plentiful, but chefs and cooks and eating-out neighborhood people were serving up all sorts of other specialties too and that's what I wanted to try.

  Chunky chowder with seafood from Casco Bay at Eve's Garden in the Harbor Hotel.  Asparagus bisque there too.  Wild Maine mussels in star anise cream.

  Baked beans and brown bread topped with a basted egg at the locals-gather-here Front Room on Congress Street.  Ginger mint tea at the foot sanctuary.

  Maine blueberries in muffins and pancakes and handfuls.  So many chefs and food artisans, brewers and spirit makers tha Portland devotes an October festival to Maine food and wine.

  For a culinary holiday, consider "Harvest on the Harbor" Oct. 21-23.

  Small markets downtown with breads and bakery goodies, fresh fruit, cheeses and wines nestled in among the houses, shops, museums, and gardens along easy-to-walk streets.

  Easy city I think Portland is to plan a picnic, especially if you like to relax in beautiful gardens.

  Summer flowers are everywhere, gigantic lush peonies and pansies in every hue.  These folks rejoice in the light and warmth of their short warm-weather season.
 
  Practical, right-to-the-point pleasant people:  that's who I found in Portland plus two small Maine towns.

  A windjammer sailing adventure triggered the trip north so discovering Rockland, Camden and the Maine gateway city Portland became a bonus.

  Portland propelled me to Europe on an easy afternoon walk with architecture reminiscent of a British countryside city center.

  Modern buildings too and volunteer Bob King in the Observatory Museum urged me to visit the just-renovated public library, including the Maine sculptors exhibit.

  Can't say that's advice I hear often but his info about the last maritime signal tower in America was so interesting I trusted him.

  Makes sense that cities with deep ports but no view of the open ocean needed a way to signal the ships and Portland's 1807 tower survived.

  Privately owned until given to the city in 1937 and renovated in 1939 as a WPA project, the Observatory Museum it is today gives visitors with good stair-climbing legs a view all the way to the White Mountains.

  Water matters in Portland and Casco Bay to the east, the deep-water estuary to the Fore River on the west and the bustling Portland Harbor anchoring the south.

  This is the real deal, a working harbor.  Sure, shops and eating places too, but the mood is productive and that can mean hearty coffee and fresh seafood.

  I stayed in the handsome Harbor Hotel with easy waterfront access and launching points for a variety of walking tours - my own or the guided kind.

  My travel buddy Syd Blackmarr and I strolled a lot, starting with breakfast at the Casco Bay end of Congress Street, wanting to poke our noses in every interesting spot.

  Second day we discovered Norm Forgey with Maine Day Trip and hopped in his comfy car to learn more about what we had seen and what we missed and absorb some of his abundant "Maine is so interesting" knowledge.

  That works in Portland and all around the state because Forgey likes day trips and likes personalizing them to particular interests.

  A favorite day journey of his connects the Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper paintings in the Portland Museum of Art with houses on the rocky Maine coast where the artists actually lived and painted.

  Maine artists are abundant in this museum, famous as Hopper; Homer, the Wyeth family, Robert Indiana, Mary Cassatt and Louise Nevelson plus some not-known-to-me Mainers with interesting works.

  The Portland Museum of Art recently acquired Winslow Homer's studio at Prouts Neck, 12 miles south of the city, and they're restoring it as it was during his life, 1836-1910.

  What a pleasure to actually see those crashing waves on the rocky Maine coast and see his paintings of them.  Homer is credited with transforming American coastal painting.

  I travel to transform myself.

  Ulysses S. Grant is in this museum too, a taller-than-life sculpture intended for the U. S. Capitol but rejected saying he looked too battle wary.

  How could he not?

  Lots of people were in the Museum of Art, just like in the library.  Local people I think, appreciating community.  For me, that makes travel better, being in the places that reflect and intrigue the ones who live there.

  Right next door is the Children's Museum, bursting with energy and happy families.  Syd and I high-tailed it to the top floor for the Camera Obscura, a popular 15th century device that actually dates back to 500 B.C.

  Louisa Donelson, Children's Museum visitor guide, says it's one of only a handful in the U.S. and certainly my first.

  I'd read about Camera Obscura in "Girl with the Pearl Earring", a tale about artist Jan Vermeer but never thought I'd use one.  Portland's distinctive that way.

  Here's the deal: best panorama view of the city in a room without windows.  A real image appears through a small hole or lens into a darkened chamber.

  Vermeer used one to paint his portraits.  Portland Children's Museum uses it to show the city scenes outside and teach all kinds of architecture, photography, optics, city planning and other lessons.

  I simply liked it.

  Wish I'd gotten in the Museum of African Culture on Brown Street, but showed up too late - intriguing art in the windows indicating feminine spirit traditions: mothers and grandmothers, queens and queen mothers, princesses, the feminine ocean.

  Much of what I found and admired is on Congress and Free Streets, basically parallel, and only two blocks north of my Harbor Hotel.  Portland is a sensible walking city.

  Soakology, however, my wonderful walking-by-it discovery, isn't on any street.  Number 30 City Center is the address and it's a pedestrian walkway, no cars on this short stretch.

  Who doesn't need a foot sanctuary, even without knowing such a place exists?  Hope I stumble across another one in my journeys.

  Teahouse on the first floor, familiar and exotic brews, chilled, steamed and steeped.  Soups and cheeses too, plus chocolates and cookies so stay awhile upstairs.

  Downstairs, the lights dim, and in front of every overstuffed chair and sofa are enormous ceramic pots, generous for my size tens.  Some comfy chairs are tucked away in curtained corners for those shy about their feet.  Men and women.

  Healing massage at Soakology, not nail polish.  Omega 3 and flax seed.  Seaweed and spirulina mud.  Neem and date seed.  Deep lavender.  Maine woods remedy.

  Ayurvedic assessment and massage too, the ancient art of India.

  Longfellow Book Store is next door; one of many bookstores in this lively city with its popular library.

  Longfellow himself is in evidence too with tours of his childhood home on, you guessed it, Congress Street.  Fantastic gardens out back, another good Portland picnic spot with comfortable benches.  Even if history tours aren't your cup of tea, I'd recommend a Portland visit for the gardens adjoining so many historic churches, museums and homes.

  Might take a book of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poems to read in the garden.  "Evangeline" I remembered and tour guide James Horrigan taught me something new.

"Nathaniel Hawthorne had the idea for the epic poem about the Acadian people in Nova Scotia moving to New France, now Louisiana, and he told his friend Longfellow."

  "Longfellow wrote it himself and gained almost-instant fame," Horrigan said.

  Some friend, I grumbled to myself.

  The Wadsworth-Longfellow House is decorated with original furnishings and family memorabilia, not always the norm on historic home tours.

  Victoria Mansion, also walkable in the opposite direction from Harbor Hotel, is filled with 90 percent of its original contents.

  That means 1860 in an Italian Villa style for multi-millionaires Ruggles Sylvester and Olive Morse.  Lavish just begins to describe this place.

  Follow Portland's curves and angles, wide streets, promenades and water overlooks and stop often to taste the local cuisine.

  Talk to people too.  Mainers respond happily, sharing information and acting interested in their visitors.

  Don't really know what I expected on my first visit to Maine but it felt just right, like Maine should.

When you go:

www.VisitPortland.com 207-772-4994

www.MaineDayTrip.com 207-838-5275

www.PortlandHarborHotel.com 888-798-9090

www.soakology.com 207-879-7625

www.HarvestontheHarbor.com 207-772-4994