Bar Harbor Maine :

Indisputably, Bar Harbor and surrounding Acadia National Park have been one of Maine’s most popular tourist destinations for generations. From the mainland past the town of Ellsworth off US 1, the ride on State Route 3 towards Bar Harbor seems pleasantly anachronistic, from old-fashioned motels with wood cabins to mom-and-pop shacks selling lobster rolls and homemade custard ice cream. After crossing over to enormous Mount Desert Island (pronounced de-ZERT), once called Pemetic (“the sloping land”) by the Wabanaki Indians, Cadillac Mountain, the 1532-foot hard pink granite peak of the nearly 48,000-acre Acadia National Park, provides America’s first breathtaking sunrise from October to March. Towns like Southwest Harbor, Northeast Harbor and Bar Harbor date back to the late 1800s when steamers from Boston brought plutocratic families like the Vanderbilt’s, Morgan’s, Pulitzers, Astor’s and Carnegies to their summer “cottages”. 

Bar Harbor beckons
Since Bar Harbor is literally at the bottom of the mountain (atop you can see the golf course, church steeples, and emerging hikers), I entered the famed resort village on Mount Desert St. and sojourned at Anne’s White Columns Inn (#57), a friendly ten-room B&B with hot breakfast and afternoon wine-and-cheese. Practically next door, St. Saviour’s Episcopal Parish (1876) boasts a quaint wooden bell-tower, an adjoining cemetery, and ten stunning Louis Comfort Tiffany windows. Don’t miss just off the altar Tiffany’s “The Flight into Egypt” with an angelic sleeping baby Jesus, an anxious Mary, and decrepit Joseph, almost three-dimensional in effect, enhanced by the lush and pearly iridescence of Favrile glass. Across the street, the Abbe Museum emphasizes Wabanaki culture, highlighted by an exquisite handmade birch canoe, intricate ash-wood baskets and clay pottery from local digs.

Main Street - Harbor
A walk along Main St. reveals handcrafts, art galleries, ice cream and fudge sellers, Indian jewelry, hiking gear, “early bird” lobster eateries, brewery tours, and whale and puffins cruises. Off the town pier you can admire the 151-foot, 4-masted schooner Margaret Todd (three daily two-hour trips), rest on the sloping grass in adjacent Agamont Park, or stroll along the historic half-mile shore path that offers superb views of the Porcupine Islands against a series of equally impressive nouveau riche Tudor mansions. For the slightly adventurous, at low tide, try walking across the nearly mile-long shell-covered sand bar from Bridge Street out to Bar Island. Afterwards, for lunch or dinner, there’s Galyn’s at 17 Main Street for good clam chowder and decent meat or fish entrées; or for really terrific views of the harbor and cruise ships, book a table in the Reading Room Restaurant inside the historic Bar Harbor Inn (1887) next to Agamont Park for Chef Louis Kiefer’s ginger seared diver scallops with smoked baby Maine shrimp, rack of lamb with roasted red pepper coulis, and New England Indian pudding. 

Acadia National Park
Back on SR 3 at Hull’s Cove Visitor Center or just past Seal Harbor (summer home of Martha Stewart) enter the 27 mile-long “loop road” of Acadia National Park ($20 seven-day car pass). The park has a 57-mile motor-free network of crushed-stone carriage roads and granite bridges, financed by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., that are heaven for hikers, mountain bikers, horseback riders, and cross-country skiers. I spent a pleasant two hours with Carriages of Arcadia out of Wildwood Stables in a 10-seat European-style wagonette with two Percheron black mares, “Bright” and “Bell,” covering 4.7 miles over three Rockefeller bridges and shouldered by one-ton coping stones acting as “natural” guard rails. Afterwards, reward yourself with lunch at the Jordan Pond House on their tea lawn for their famous lobster stew and popovers or lobster quiche followed by an excellent blueberry cobbler with homemade peach ice cream.

Spectacular Cadillac Mountain
From the forested entry at Jordon Pond exit off to the hairpin turns that end at the top of Cadillac Mountain, the highest point on the Atlantic coast, skirted by spruce and pitch pine. Whether it’s early morning sunrise, midday full light or late afternoon sunset the panorama from the glacier boulders topside wows everyone: to the northeast lies Bar Harbor and Frenchman Bay; the Cranberry Islands loom to the southwest; the coast of Maine and its lower chain of mountains to the west; and the vast Atlantic ocean shimmers off east. Down below on the loop road, motor past renowned Thunder Hole when at three-quarter rising tide the rocky formation bellows with the frigid Atlantic waters, or for dare devils attempt a few laps at Sand Beach. For hikers Acadia offers 120 miles of interconnected trails including “Great Head” and “Gorham Mountain” off Sand Beach and “The Precipice” for extremely experienced climbers and home for endangered peregrine falcons.

Northeast &  Southwest Harbor
While Bar Harbor receives the lion’s share of tourist traffic, I decided to drive to Northeast Harbor, accessible by land up Somes Sound, the only ....