A place not to be missed (Maine)

Member Name: ScottishWestie

Product:	Maine
Date:	19/06/09 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Friendly people, choice, eating out, price of fuel

Disadvantages: It's so big youi need more time to see it all

The plan was to visit New England (North East of the USA) in late September when the foliage was turning a different colour. We planned to hire a car & travel via Maine, New Hampshire & eventually our ultimate destination, Vermont.
This review is concentrates on the state of Maine & includes reviews of guest houses, tourist attractions & restaurants in the Southern part of the state.

INFORMATION ON MAINE

Some historians reckon that the Vikings visited Maine in the 11th century but didn't stay, but European settlement started about 500 years later.
Maine is the most sparsely populated state in the USA & consists of a spectacular coastline of bays, harbours & inlets. It also has deep forests, spectacular mountains, glacial lakes & thousands of miles of rivers. Added to that Maine has unspoiled wilderness & rather quaint colonial houses.
It has its fair share of lighthouses on its coast line along with many homes that once belonged to sea captains. Maine has managed to preserve its land rather well & tourism is the main industry.
Part of Maine borders on New Hampshire to the west & Canada to the north, the weather can get rather cold in winter but the popular times to visit are between June & September.

THE JOURNEY BEGINS

We flew into Boston on a Saturday night & stayed overnight at a hotel close to Logan Airport. We had booked car hire, accommodation & flights via the Internet before we left the UK. With a large pile of confirmations printed off we set off, our trip started on the Sunday morning at 10am at the car rental office close to the airport.
The National car rental site was huge with its own bus terminus & taxi rank. They couldn't provide us with the car we had booked so they upgraded us free of charge. We were offered any car of our choice from the cars parked in lane 'C'. I looked outside to lane 'C' & saw eight identical white Chevrolet Impalas & one solitary Chrysler PT Cruiser in bright blue.
Most of our driving in the next 15 days would be on roads similar to the UK & the thought of driving a car the size of my living room around didn't have much appeal. So it was 'no' to the row of Chevrolets & we chose the much smaller Chrysler.
The first problem we encountered was when we tried to load our luggage into the boot of the car, it wouldn't fit. The 'love of my life' doesn't do 'travelling light'; she has just about everything in her case with the exceptions of the 'U' pipe from under the kitchen sink!
I didn't want to flip the rear seats down to increase luggage space in case some 'low life' saw it as an opportunity to steal our goods. So after some huffing & puffing we eventually managed to cram the cases into the boot & force the tailgate closed. It was under so much tension that when you opened it, the tailgate flew open at such a force if it had hit me it would have knocked me out!!
One last thing before we drove off was my little plastic strip with yellow arrows! I got this from a work mate who is a member of the Institute of Advanced drivers; he reliably informed me that if I fix this to my steering wheel at the 12 o' clock position the arrows will remind me to drive on the right side of the road.
It's held together with Velcro & once fitted doesn't obstruct your use of the steering wheel. Time will tell if it works, but I just got outside the rental site when I drove on the wrong side of the road!! Luckily for us there was no one else around but it was too early to judge if my strip of arrows was working!

There are two ways to enter Maine by road from Massachusetts in the south, the Interstate highway 95 being the fastest but we wanted to travel the coast road which although slower is more scenic.
The run from Boston to the southern tip of Maine was generally non descript so I'll start from the Maine state line. We were heading for a place called York on the very Southern tip of Maine right on the coast.
Just after lunch we reached York, the outer district of this rather charming town had many impressive homes. Mainly wooden houses painted white with immaculate gardens, they looked so fresh & clean against the bright blue sky.

Our accommodation for the next couple of days was situated on the dockside close to a marina. York has a beach made up of stones & sand, despite the lovely sunny & warm Sunday afternoon the beach was almost deserted. I guess Americans don't do 'bucket & spades' on the beach like us Brits, shame really!

DOCKSIDE GUEST QUARTERS

We were heading for the Dockside Guest Quarters in Harris Island overlooking the marina. It looked really fantastic on the website but then so would Norman Bates hotel from the film Psycho!
As we travelled along a wide pier, wide enough for two cars to pass each other, we could see the place at the end of the pier close to a restaurant.
Boy o' boy, it looked rather impressive, built in 1891 this white painted three storey guest house was left in a dilapidated state until the current family purchased it in 1953. It's been handed down through the generations & has gained an excellent reputation in recent years.

We parked the car & walked inside, the reception room had a nautical theme & we were greeted by a young couple who were in charge that day. We were taken to our room on the first floor which overlooked the marina.
The room is decorated in a Victorian period style, flowery wall paper with matching curtains & bed covers doesn't appeal to everyone but with the sun shining in, it made the room very bright & homely.
The furniture also looked from that period, solid dark wood to match the floor. The room had some mod cons like a TV but no air conditioning, just a rather effective electric fan mounted on the roof lamp.
There was no en-suite bathroom but we knew that before we arrived, however we did have our own bathroom at the end of the corridor. They supplied us dressing gowns so that if I did feel the need to evacuate my bladder during the night the dressing gown would cover up my Superman PJ's! Well a man needs to maintain his dignity!!
There would be little chance of visiting the bathroom at night without waking up the guests as the floorboards creaked unbelievably loud. We slept well every night in a small but comfortable bed with very little noise outside.

Breakfast time was the highlight of our stay but not for the food. It was served in a room off the reception area; the room featured one large table in the centre of the room filled with a buffet style selection. There were no tables to eat from, no hot food just a good selection of fruit, yogurts, bagels, cereal, tea, coffee, juice etc. You could either sit on the seats surrounding the table or as most people did, go outside onto the balcony & eat your breakfast over looking the marina. The view was very special indeed.
Notes: Dockside Guest Quarters, 22 Harris Island Road, York, Maine, 03909, Telephone 800 270-1977. Prices vary depending on size of room, time of year & length of stay but they have an excellent website that explains it all. They do weddings & other special events & despite our basic room I would recommend this place anytime.

After breakfast we decided to drive up the coast line from York heading north to Kennebunk & Kennebunkport. The Bush family (old George & George Dubya) have their holiday home in the area so you can imagine it is quite a well heeled area. Despite all that we visited Kennebunkport for a morning & it was a rather charming little town. Situated on the coast it features many good quality shops for tourists.

Between 1810-1870 it was famous for being a busy port & a shipbuilding centre long before it became popular as a summer retreat for the rich & famous.
The streets are spotless & it is easy & free to park close to the centre of town. It was a very busy little place & the people were friendly & helpful. I parked close to a patch of grass & watched countless number of grey squirrels running up & down the trees with their collection of nuts not fazed by us humans watching close by.

Although we never visited it, Kennebunkport has a Seashore Trolley Museum featuring 200 antique street cares including one from New Orleans named 'Desire'.

We decided to drive further north on the coast road & came along a row of houses which included a handful of interesting gift shops & a café selling home made food. We decide to visit the café as we were both hungry, we walked in to find about a dozen people sitting at tables or on bar style stools close to the counter. We found a table & placed an order for two sandwiches.
"Where are you guys from" came a male voice in the corner of the cafe, "Scotland" I replied. "Wow, you guys come all the way from Scotland to here?".
Before long just about everyone in the café came up to speak to us, you would have though we just landed form Mars! They were all very friendly & all allegedly had relations from either England or Scotland but many of them got Scotland & Ireland mixed up!
"You gotta taste Martha's home made apple pie, its just like how your mom used to make it" said another man. So we did & it was just fantastic. The owner (Martha) was so pleased we ate it & loved it that she didn't charge us for it.
We only came in here for a quick bite to eat, stayed for two hours & knew more about this little community in that two hours than what I know about my own family in a lifetime!

We travelled back south on the coast road which is just as narrow & twisty as roads in the UK & visited Ogunquit. Another charming small coastal town where we walked around for a couple of hours taking in the sunshine & sea breeze. Ogunquit is Indian for 'Beautiful place by the sea' named by the Abenaki Indians. It's a busy place with tourists flocking here daily in the summer. It has a couple of miles of sand & dunes overlooked by a backdrop of rugged cliffs.

From Ogunquit we travelled the short distance to Perkins Cove, another small coastal retreat. It features the only pedestrian draw bridge in the USA & has many old fishermen's shacks converted into unusual gift shops. Perkins Cove.
We wondered into a small shop selling paintings of the area painted by local artists. The owner was out doing an errand & the shop was being looked after by rather elegantly dressed elderly woman.
"Where are you guys from" she softly asked, "Scotland" I replied. "Wow" she replied back but said no more. On leaving the shop she called my wife back, "Wait" she said "I have something for you". After rummaging through a drawer she pulled out a small resealable plastic bag with a four leafed clover in it.
She presented it to my wife & said "Have a safe journey through America & a safe journey home". It was a nice gesture to make to a complete stranger considering we didn't even buy anything.

The following day we drove up to the main highway to see a museum the locals recommended. It had no name but was just north of York on Interstate 95. The building housing the collection of Americana was once a restaurant; it opened in the 1920s & was very popular with the locals until the depression in the 1930s.
We wondered in & was confronted by the owner, "Are you with the bus tour?" he asked. As I looked round I saw a large bus off loading a large number of pensioners, I said "No", (cheeky sod!). He offered us both a private viewing of his collection before the tour started with the pensioners.
He charged us $5.00 & escorted us into the large room; it was like an up market Steptoe & Son yard full of antiques & unusual objects from the mid 19th century to the late 20th century.
He was the owner, a little eccentric but quite a character all the same, he showed us some rare 19th century jewellery, ceramics, linen wear & then moved onto old record players that you wound up. "Just for you" he said & dragged out a box full of old 78 records. They featured old Scottish musical hall artists from the 1920s & 1930s & he started playing one for us.
I do my very best to avoid listening to this type of records at home let alone travel thousands of miles to hear them in a different country but I suppose it was a kind gesture all the same.
From there we were shown old musical instruments, old toys, an incredible selection of pianos & antique furniture. "Where do you find all this stuff" I asked. It turns out that he obtains the stuff from house clearances, if some old person drops down dead the relations will call on him to remove the contents of the house if no one else wants them.
He keeps the best stuff for his 'museum' & sells the less desirable items locally or on Ebay.
The final thing he showed me was a wooden chair, apparently when this place was a restaurant

President Roosevelt visited it for refreshments & sat on this particular chair.
Thinking he was winding me up he lifted the chair up, turned it upside down to show me where someone at sometime had written on that President Roosevelt sat here & the date from 1929!!
Well, lets be honest he could have written Elvis Presley's name on the chair or even Tony Blackburn (perish the thought!) & how would we know its true? Anyway, just so that I have something interesting to tell my future grand children, I parked my arse on the chair for a minute, the same chair that President Roosevelt sat on!!
We spent a half hour in here getting a private tour of this amazing collection & eventually left.
Just a short distance up the highway on the same side of the road is the Wells Auto Museum with a large collection of mainly American cars dating as far back as the early 20th century.
Compared to the rather bland looking cars of today this collection features many fabulous looking cars from all eras. The problem is the collection is out growing the site & all the cars are rather crammed closely together that you don't see them as you should.

Further on from the auto museum is a small retail village, it looks like an old one storey mountain chalet from the road but features many shops including gift shops, shoes shops & a factory outlet shop selling ladies & gents clothes.
They sell many leading brands such as Tommy Hilfiger & Timberland at much reduced prices because they are either old stock or imperfect. I purchased three Timberland shirts for the equivalent of £16.00 each & can't for the life of me find any imperfections in them.

We had spent three days in the York area, eating out was much cheaper than in the UK even with the 15%-20% service charge many restaurants expect. Gift shops sold good quality goods at reasonable prices.
Despite the up market image that this area has the locals weren't pretentious & they did make you feel very welcome. However it was time to move on & our next couple of days was to be spent in Portland, the biggest city in Maine & only a short distance from York.

PORTLAND INFORMATION

It was once a prosperous port & the state capital but had been devastated by four major fires over the years which caused a lot of destruction. This resulted in many of its buildings being made from sturdy stone rather than wood.
Today, it's downtown & promenade area is rather beautiful with good quality shops & restaurants. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow the poet lived in Portland which inspired him so much, his home still stands today on 489 Congress Street.
We were heading for our hotel on Congress Street which is only a stones throw from the main highway. I had no sat nav at the time & didn't bother taken a map. My wife cannot read maps very well; I would have more chance of finding the hotel if I gave her the wiring diagram of the Tokyo underground sub station than a map of Portland! I did however; download maps onto my PDA which proved more successful.

INN AT ST JOHN, PORTLAND

This guest house dates back to the late 19th century & was very popular with travellers. It was easily found by car, from the main road it looks quite small but as you drive around the block it soon becomes apparent that it's a lot bigger than you think.
You can't park at the front of the guest house but need to go around the back; there are more spaces available further down the street. You can enter the guest house by either the front or back entrance.
It is nicely decorated in a 19th century style, the room we got was clean, comfortable & quiet & decorated in the same period style. The en-suite bathroom was a little odd shaped & small but it was clean & well equipped.
There is no restaurant & only a small section of the lobby is used for breakfasts. There is no hot food but many other things such as yogurts, bagels, cereal, maple syrup, pancakes, cheese, coffee, tea, juice etc. Despite the lack of tables & hot food it was rather pleasant & well organised.
The young lad in reception was very popular with the guests, he was gay & always cracking jokes, always willing to help & nothing was too much of a problem for him.
Notes: Inn at St John, 939 Congress Street, Portland, Maine, 04102. Tel 207 773-6481. Website www.innatstjohn.com Located close to the railway station & about 2.5 miles from ferry terminal. Check out the website for room rates. The hotel is highly recommended.

The lack of restaurant within the hotel isn't a big deal as there are ample places to eat on Congress Street. Our first night there we were very tired & as you are quite a distance from downtown Portland we decided to eat locally.
Next door to the hotel we saw a café called the Dog Fish café, from outside it looked rather plain with its red top signage with the Coca Cola logo & dated looking windows. We'll give this place a miss we thought & visited a pizza restaurant across the road instead.
Neither of the two of us really like pizzas but the ones they served in this restaurant / take-a-way was fantastic. Added to that there was an English style pub next door where they allowed you to take your beer to the pizza restaurant. So cold beer & pizza it was & we enjoyed it.

The next day the hotel residents were raving on about the Dog Fish Café & how brilliant it was despite its plain looks outside. That night we decided to have a peek inside.

DOG FISH CAFÉ

We opened the door & stuck our nose in, it may be plain outside but it looked rather nice inside, the menu looked very appealing so we went in. It was a very busy place for a Thursday night, its not that family friendly as it doesn't have children's portions but they would make up burgers & nuggets if requested for children.
The menu was rather good with many traditional dishes, veggie dishes & a good selection of beers & wine. Service was relaxed & the whole place was so unpretentious. Prices were about two thirds of typical UK prices & that included the tips.
In fact it was so good we went back for more the following night at 7pm but they were queuing out the door into the street & we told to come back in two hours & they may have a seat available!

Notes: Dog Fish Café, 953 Congress Street, Portland Maine. Highly recommend if you are in the area but book first. Tel 207 253-5400.

During the day when we first arrived we took a trolley bus tour of the city, it proved to be very interesting passing Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's house in Congress Street along with the famous lighthouse named Portland headlight.
There are numerous light houses surrounding Portland as well as the entire Maine coast line.
One afternoon we took a short cruise of the coastline around Portland, it was a very hot afternoon & the cool breeze at sea was very welcoming. We ended up being pushed for time in Portland but some of the attractions there include the Portland Museum of Art, 7 Congress Square, Children's Museum of Maine, 142 Free Street, George Tait house, 1270 Westbrook Street & Maine Narrow gauge railway & Museum, 58 Fire Street.

MAINE WILDLIFE PARK

About 30 minutes driving time North West of Portland is the Maine Wildlife Park, surprisingly it wasn't advertised locally whilst we were in Maine. I only found out about the place via the Internet at home.
It is worth a visit as you get the chance to see animals that are mainly from the immediate area & unlikely to see at home.
It is a large park almost set out like a zoo, many of the animals featured live here permanently and many others will be set free once they are ready.
It is a great opportunity to see local deer which is the first thing you see as you enter the park. There are large cages housing raccoons, they may look cute & cuddly but they are a real pest to the locals. One woman in the park told us that she often sees a raccoon pulling a bag of her rubbish into her local woods to scavenge out of. The bags are usually three times the size of the raccoon but they are real resourceful characters. Should they find food just once in your garden, they will still return to same spot night after night looking for more.
One particular raccoon in the cage was huge, obese in fact, this little guy must have had a real good time to reach this size & but he was now on a strict diet.
In another cage was a porcupine & just up from that a menacing looking leopard which is not usually found in North America. One large fenced off area house a large moose with huge antlers but on the day we visited he was sleeping at the back of the pen & we couldn't get a proper look at him.
However, the biggest attraction at the wildlife park are the bears, it is about as 'up close & personal' as you'll ever get to them without the situation becoming dangerous. Picture # 8 shows one of the many bears in the park & you'll notice the little thin wire running across the picture, its electrified just in case they fancy a human for lunch!!
We spoke to the owner of the park who when he heard our accents informed us that he met his American wife in Scotland whilst studying at university & had just come back from Scotland on holiday.
Notes: Maine Wildlife Park, 56 Game Farm Road, Gray, Maine, 04039. Tel 207 657-4977.

After we left the park we travelled a few miles to a wooded area just for a walk & came across dozens of chipmunks in the woodland. They remind you of squirrels when you see them moving around.
We had been in Maine for nearly a week & now needed to move on to New Hampshire. I would thoroughly recommend this place but you would need more than a week to see the rest of the state. There is so much to see & s much to do that two weeks is simply not enough.
We travelled west towards New Hampshire to look forward to another week in this fine country & thanks to my little piece of plastic with the yellow arrows I'm still driving on the right side of the road!

To be continued...............

Summary: For beautiful scenery, friendly people & decent prices, give it a go