Maine Course

Food, Beer, Coffee, and Atmosphere -- Is There Anything Portland Doesn't Have?

PORTLAND, MAINE, WAS NEVER on my must-visit list, but after last weekend, I'm tempted to begin researching housing prices. The missus and I stashed the youngest member of the Shallow Center household with the in-laws and zipped up 95 for an overnight in Portland's Old Port district. Modest red brick buildings and cobblestone streets lend an intimate, stately air to the area; the countless charming bistros, brewpubs, coffeehouses, and upscale shops offer a funky, fun, contemporary vibe. Everything is walkable, and the people are low-key, laid-back, and ridiculously friendly. About the only detriments we found in the city Saturday were the weather, a confirmation of Dave Barry's "cold, but damp" crack, and the replacement of the quaint, progressive afternoon and evening crowds with throngs of college kids who swarmed Fore Street at closing time and woke us despite closed windows on our third-floor hotel room.

So now I have options. Someday, when I sell my yet-to-be-written novel for an obscenely large advance, I'll spend my summers (a) on Cape Cod drinking Harpoon IPA, or (b) in Portland drinking Andrew's English Pale Ale, and sketching out the plots of subsequent books. If and when I sell enough of them, I'll buy the Phillies and run the team as a real major league franchise instead of the perpetual clown show it's become. Because it always comes back to that, doesn't it?

Comments

[gr]

there's a reason writers live in new england. actually, there are a bunch. i have a friend that moved there last weekend and she has been singing its praises since. you guys drove, though? judas priest!

[Tom G]

Mark Twain left the South to write in New England.

How long a drive was it?

[Meredith]

Octoberfest at the Harpoon Brewery was goooood times. Oh how I miss living in Boston.

[gr]

how about some picture, by the way?

[Jer]

Yeah, post some pix! Maine is nice but I'll take the 82 degrees in the Loo today. Kids went to school in shorts.

[Mike Cunningham]

A couple years back, I spent a week in Maine... hitting Bar Harbor... Camden... then Portland Maine... I wanted a "city" end to the trip. And I wasn't disappointed. I was up there Halloween week, and Fore street jumped on Halloween night. I really enjoyed myself. Although, my girlfriend at the time thinks I was more happy that we had internet access in the hotel room.

Sounds like we stayed in the same hotel room, because the revelry kept us late as well.

The drive to Bar Harbor was 10 hours, and 8 hours on the way back from Portland. Me and my damn fear of flying!

[Tom Durso]

Sorry, friends, we left the camera with Nana and Pop-pop. The visual descriptions above will have to suffice. As for driving times, it was about 5.5 hours from SC HQ to the in-laws, southwest of Boston, and then 2.5 hours from there to Portland. We made those trips on different days, so were able to space out the driving. Mike, were you staying at the Portland Harbor Hotel?

[Tom Goodman]

We stayed in the Portland area on several summer occasions in the past while my step-daughter was at camp, 35 miles northwest of the city. We, too, were pleasantly impressed. The first summer we drove up along the coastal route and managed somehow to avoid most of the traffic jams in the small towns along the way. Subsequent summers we were less fortunate and tried alternate routes, which are not nearly as scenic or interesting. If one drives to Maine in the summer one has to expect heavy traffic. (I have never encountered worse traffic than Sunday afternoons leaving Maine and entering New Hampshire.)

For the most part we also avoided the outlet centers, which to my way of thinking should be avoided at all times.

Portland itself is quite charming, filled with wonderful 19th century architecture, good restaurants, and a very walkable central district.