Discover Maine :

As a kid my family once spent a fabulous summer in Maine. We stayed in a boarding house (before the advent of trendy B&Bs), ate lots of lobster and gobbled down blueberry pie. At a local fair I got lost and a state trooper took me around on his shoulders until my hysterical parents recognized me. I also remember falling in the water and nearly turning purple. If strong memories mean anything, it was certainly an exhilarating and eventful vacation.

Raw Beauty
Happily, despite the subsequent decades, northeastern Maine still possesses an almost rural aura that retains much of its innocence, authenticity, and sheer raw beauty. Arriving at hassle-free Bangor International Airport, I hopped in my rental car and easily reached coastal ‘Down East’ Maine on State Routes 9 and 192 as well as US 1 and 1A. There is a refreshing scarcity of urban noise, billboard pollution, enraged motorists, and, most important, rampant overbuilding. Most strikingly, the forests, ponds, bogs, lakes, rocky shoreline, coastal bays, nearby islands, peninsulas and icy Atlantic waters seize the viewer through their shiny intactness as if newly forged from a post-glacial era.

Begin with Bangor
While most visitors rush out to the coast it is certainly worth a short visit to Bangor, the region’s main hub. Called the 19th century’s “lumber capital of the world,” the city’s charming brick-lined historic downtown snuggles alongside the Penobscot River with its excellent restaurants, antique shops, crafts stores and boutiques. The town’s rich cultural life boasts the Penobscot Theater, Robinson Ballet, UMaine Museum of Art, Maine Discovery Museum, and the Bangor Symphony Orchestra. For accommodations we stayed in the spacious riverside Hollywood Casino Hotel & Raceway with live table action and over 1,000 slots. Next door, enjoy Irish cheer at Geaghan’s Pub with its microbrewery, boneless wings, and solid homemade fare. Savvy locals, like mega-novelist Stephen King, head to The Fiddlehead Restaurant for fresh Maine ingredients like duck-confit spring rolls, panko-crusted haddock, and winterport winery stout ice cream.

Lubec Lures
Of course, the craggy Maine coastline beckons. While close-by Bar Harbor and Acadia National Park draw huge summer and fall crowds, I decided to drive further northeast on SR 9 and 192 to Lubec, the easternmost town in the contiguous U.S. Across the bridge sits the 2800-acre Roosevelt Campobello International Park in New Brunswick, Canada (bring your passport!). Lubec immediately captivates with its wind-blown wooden fishing shacks, bobbing lobster boats, the candy cane striped West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, and a rushing twenty-foot tidal change just inland from the phenomenal 50-foot tides of the Bay of Fundy. Headquartered hillside at the very comfortable Peacock House B&B and its excellent hot breakfast, we took the short drive across the bridge to Campobello Island (one hour ahead!) and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s summer family compound.

Campobello Island + Roosevelts
From the distinctive 34-room red cedar shingle “cottage” FDR spent his childhood sailing, hiking, fishing, and golfing against the backdrop of Passamaquoddy Bay. Next door, Eleanor Roosevelt’s cottage offers free tea and homemade cookies twice a day with a short talk by park staff that quote her: “Women are like teabags. We don’t know our true strength until we are in hot water!” Off the north end of the island walk to the Head Harbor Lighthouse before the tide sweeps in at five feet an hour, explore the three carriage roads to Liberty Point with its observation deck, kayak in Herring Cove, or observe humpback whales, seals and bald eagles with Capt. Riddle’s Whale Watch Tours. That night back on Lubec’s waterfront we dined on fresh bay scallops, lobster mac ‘n’ cheese, and carrot cake at the Water Street Tavern & Inn which directly faces Moholland Light on Campobello Island.

Chocolate and Lighthouses
The next day outside town on SR 189 we found Monica’s Chocolates, the delightful creation of a Peruvian-born woman whose home and workplace produce handcrafted truffles, cream centers, bonbons, Maine “needhams” (potato filling), dipped fruit, nut clusters, sugar-free chocolates, some of which are shaped like sea urchins, cucumbers or shells. Just east, a short ride leads to West Quoddy Head Lighthouse, one of Maine’s most photographed sites with its red candy-stripe exterior.

Historic Maine
About a thirty-minute ride south on US 1 the historic town of Machias (muh-chi-us), “Bad Little Falls,” was the site of the first naval fight in the Revolutionary War where American patriots amazingly armed with muskets, knives and pitchforks seized the British naval vessel Margaretta. At the Burnham Tavern Museum (1770), site of the plot, the nearly untouched gambrel roof house with millstone steps is a fascinating microcosm of colonial life with its large colonial fireplace kitchen, ship mementos, slanted wood flooring, a butter churn, and the poignant children’s attic. Further down at ....