I flew into Portland on Sunday about 5 hours before Stuart did. That gave me a little time to explore. Fortunately our hotel is about 3 blocks from just about anything we could want to see in downtown Portland! So I headed out a few blocks east (I think it was east) down to the Harbor. I had images in my head of a picturesque harbor with seagulls flying around everywhere; however, it was quite a bit different! Portland is one of the countries oldest harbors, and it's still a working harbor ... meaning there are railroad and cargo piers, and an occasional few lobstermen wondering around. This is actually the second largest oil port on the East coast - which is pretty wild. There's a pipeline across the harbor from us sending oil to Canada. Stu got pretty excited about that. Here's a couple pictures of the prettiest parts:
Once it started to get dark I headed back to the hotel and waited for Stu's flight to get in. He got in around 9:45, and we headed out to latest dinner we've had in a long time. We went to Eventide, an oyster bar a block from the hotel. It was an interesting place, very trendy, and served up fresh seafood from the port a block away with an Asian spin. For instance, I had my first lobster roll (yay!) served on a Chinese pork bun. It was pretty fantastic. Turns out the plates were pretty small, so we ordered a couple of items each - among them were fresh Maine oysters! I'm normally not a big oyster fan because of the texture, but these were roasted in the shell and topped with Korean BBQ sauce and pickled onions. I slurped them right up!
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| Lobster Roll #1 |
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| Oysters ... that I actually liked! |
Today (Monday) we headed out together to explore the town - and explore we did! I bet we walked about 4 or 5 miles today exploring the city. First we went down by the harbor. As I mentioned before it's a working harbor so unfortunately there's not a lot to explore (at least that we could find). I wish instead of a picture I could post a smell on here - because the ocean breezes sure were nice! Unfortunately the streets were crowded with a lot of other people enjoying those breezes ... a Carnival cruise ship had just docked right across from our hotel, dropping its 2,984 passengers into the streets. Fortunately it seemed most of them weren't into exploring the things we wanted to see, so that worked out well. After the waterfront we went to Old Port, which is a cute cobblestoned area of town. There are a lot of cute little shops there, but I didn't think that warranted any pictures.
Then came lunch! If you know us well you know that we like food. Portland was fairly recently voted "America's foodiest small town", which is one of the reasons we wanted to come here. When it comes to trip planning, I probably put the biggest amount of effort into planning our meals. Our first lunch stop was a place called Duckfat - so named because they fry up their fries in - you guessed it - duck fat. We went for the fries, obviously, but wound up getting their charcuterie plate filled with local and house-cured meats. It was phenomenal. We finished the meal with a milkshake made with Maine honey.
Portland is also known for its breweries, so next on the agenda was a stop at the Shipyard Brewery. Unfortunately they weren't doing a full tour that day, so we joined a bunch of carnival ship members in a tasting. Found a few that we liked and a few that gave me a bitter beer face. They even had beer soap for sale? Didn't try that.
After the milkshake and the beer tasting, we badly needed more walking. Portland has a nice harborside trail called the Eastern Promenade which circles the city. We walked about 2 miles with some gorgeous views before hitting our next stop - Maine Mead Works. Stuart and I didn't know much about mead - honestly I had never heard of it before researching this trip. Basically its a combination of water, honey, and yeast plus or minus a few spices and fruits, which ferments into a sweet wine. Apparently it naturally occurs in nature, but when it does it's so sweet you can't really palate it. So these 2 cousins in Portland decided to start making their own, and eventually have turned it into a pretty big business. We got to taste their meads and do a tour of the "factory" where they fill every bottle by hand and squeeze lemons into their "sweet tea mead" by hand. Pretty neat stuff.
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| Stuart contemplating the sea |
Then we did some more walking up to the Portland Observatory. This was built in 1807 and is the only maritime signal still in existence in the States. It's not a light house, but rather a signal tower. For example, if Captain Moody (builder) saw Mr Jones bringing his boat into Portland's harbor after a few months away at sea, he would put up a certain flag signalling Mr Jones' family that he was back. It was also used to observe the weather, etc. And for us these days, we get to tour it with a super cute volunteer named Roland, and see some pretty spectacular views at the top.
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| The view Captain Moody watched. Straight thru that channel in the middle is the Atlantic Ocean. There're also two lighthouses in this picture if you can spot them (mom) |
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| View of downtown Portland ... and a plane in the top left corner. Oops! |
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| When you ask someone to take a photo, perhaps you should ask if they understand lighting. Oh well, not a Christmas card candidate. |
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| The Observatory from below |
After all that walking it was time for some hot tea (hot chocolate for Stu) and some rest back at the hotel, (that's where I'm typing this now) and then on to dinner! We went to a place called Local 188. Local because I'm assuming maybe that's where locals go? We definitely stuck out a bit there. Not sure the significance of the 188. Anywho, we split a big pan of seafood paella stuffed with mussels, clams, scallops, hake (new fish for me), tuna, and ...
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| Lobster #2 |
A great first two days! My feet are tired. Tomorrow we're off to one of the local islands for some biking!
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