One of Berkley’s Operating Units is in Portland Maine. Absolutely beautiful! Portland and Acadia National Park are definitely places I want to vacation with Hanna and the kids someday. Below are some pictures of Portland and the Porthole Restaurant on the water. Great food, especially the lobster roll! They usually have live music on the pier. Good times.
From everything online, Acadia is one of the better National Parks. I asked a coworker from Maine for recommendations and here was a summary for future reference:
For Acadia National Park, if you get on the Park Loop Road and drive that, they’ll see the highlights. Sand Beach, Thunder Hole, Otter Cliffs, Jordan Pond and The Bubbles, Bubble Rock, and then, ultimately, the drive up Cadillac Mountain. There are tons of hiking trails. Not sure how active you are, but many trails are easy, some are moderate, and some are…forget about it. All levels. Bass Harbor Light is another part of the park, further away from “Acadia Proper”, so to speak. My wife and I always go to Jordan’s Restaurant on Cottage Street for breakfast. We love going to Side Street Café on Rodick Street for dinner. There are also cruises out of the harbor that you can go on. See seals, lighthouses, the park from the ocean, etc. There’s an improv comedy place, also on Cottage Street, I think, but I don’t know if they’re open this season due to COVID. That’s always fun. Back to the park, there are I don’t know how many miles of carriage trails you can walk on. Mostly flat-ish. You’ll see bicyclists, walkers, horse-drawn carriages, etc. on there. Plenty of maps and books about the carriage trails, hiking trails, the park, etc. If you’re able to bike and have any interest, there are bike rental places, also on Cottage Street, I think. They normally have the Island Explorer, a free bus that takes you around the park. Hop on and hop off. Not running this year, though, so that doesn’t really help you. You should save some time and buy a week-long pass (you can’t get a day pass) online for the dates you’ll be there. Parking can be an issue, depending on where and when you go in the park. Expect to see full parking lots and you’ll have to park on the Park Loop Road (mostly a one way road). I could go on, but I’ll stop there.
As for Portland, there’s always, in no particular order:
· Portland Headlight.
· Two Lights Park and the Lobster Shack (nothing amazing for food, but great views).
· Freeport (shopping mecca and the home of LL Bean).
· Duck tour (again, not sure because of COVID).
· Casco Bay Lines really isn’t doing much for cruises right now because of COVID, but maybe?
· Tons of restaurants in the Old Port, or on Commercial Street, like the Porthole. They have a good outdoor seating area there.
My wife and I took a day last week to drive 2 hours from Gorham (near Portland) to take the Cog Railway up to the top of Mount Washington. Not sure how much you’d be looking to drive, but that was fun, and there are some pics of good places in NH on that page as well.