Boothbay Harbor, Maine (2021) - Travelogue

Monday, October 11, 2021

We started our journey north with a stop in Portsmouth, NH. The foliage was in peak form and the sun was shining - everyone was out in the heart of this adorable town, with fall decorations everywhere and a jazz band on the street.

We walked through the town, stopping in a spice and tea shop to get Josh’s favorite salmon rub and local honey for our post-wedding sore throats! We wandered some more, ending up at the popover shop where we shared a delicious popover with maple butter, Alice had a cappuccino, and Josh had a delicious lavender chamomile tea (see above note about sore throats). We headed back to the car and drove down the road to a lovely little spa where we enjoyed an incredibly relaxing couples massage - Josh had booked this as a wedding gift and surprise for Alice!

With all our stress smoothed away, we continued on a 2-hour drive up to Boothbay Harbor - the most beautiful, foliage-filled drive we’ve ever seen. Arriving at the Harborage Inn, we checked in to our beautiful, top-floor suite with harbor views from the porch and were given the breakfast menu that we used to choose our food for the next morning. This nightly breakfast selection and dropping our delicious choice into the little blue box became our favorite daily ritual!

Having settled in, we adventured out to a local brewery called Footbridge, where we shared a flight of absolutely delicious beers - a mix of fruity beers with a German wheat beer and an IPA. They were all delicious, and we made a fluffy friend named Dexter sitting outside at the brewery!

Next stop was the Boathouse for dinner. We waited in line for a rooftop deck table and got seated right next to the railing overlooking the water and the footbridge covered in twinkle lights. We had originally planned to eat there Wednesday but on a whim decided to try it Monday instead - a stroke of luck since after Monday they were closing for renovations for 3 weeks! We started the meal with a shared basket of crispy, salty French fries (with ketchup and honey mustard) to celebrate the end of our wedding diet! Then Alice had baked potato stuffed with vegetables and goat cheese while Josh enjoyed a polenta-based appetizer. Main course was next: Alice had a spicy mango tofu curry and Josh had chicken risotto topped with onion rings. We learned that our eyes were bigger than our stomachs, so we brought leftovers home to our fridge! Then we walked home through the beautiful night air and fell sound asleep by 9:45 PM. A perfect start to the trip.

Tuesday, October 12

This morning started with watching the sunrise over Boothbay Harbor and reading our books on the porch - our early night meant we were wide awake by 7 AM! We enjoyed our incredible room-service breakfast (ordered the night before) of an Asiago-pepper scramble and a chocolate hazelnut Belgian waffle. We shared both meals and enjoyed coffee, hot chocolate, and juice while breathing in the fresh ocean air.

We started our adventure out around 10:30 by heading over to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. We wandered the beautiful planted flower gardens, learned about bees from a lovely bee-keeping couple visiting from South Dakota (ask us about how bee queens battle for the crown and how bees suffer performance issues in the cold!), and hiked through miles of woods on a troll-hunt.

The guardians of the seeds is an exhibit at the Gardens that highlights the ways in which trees interact with their ecosystem. We found all 5 trolls and became one with each of them (see photos). Then we solved their riddle and hiked to find the valley of seeds, enjoying a fairy village and views of the water along the way. We finished our time at the Gardens with a snack of Maine blueberry soda and potato chips (yay fried potatoes!) and got some local lemon meringue fudge to bring back to the Inn.

Back at the Inn, we relaxed and read on the porch again and got dressed up for a nice dinner at the Thistle Inn. We arrived an hour before our reservation to sit at the adorable new outdoor bar, and we instantly befriended a lovely (liberal, fully vaccinated) couple in their 60s from New Jersey named John and Karen. After an hour of chatting with them at the bar (with a lavender martini, a pomegranate-and-Prosecco cocktail, and a basket of truffle tater tots) our reservation was ready, but we told the hostess we’d rather stay at the bar and eat our meal there with John and Karen. They decided to do the same, and we spent 3 hours at the bar eating delicious food (a beet salad with fried goat cheese for Alice, salmon cakes for Josh, and a shared main of vegetable risotto) chatting about our wedding, their baby grandson, and the wonders of Maine. We finished the night with a spiced bourbon apple cake (a la mode, of course), and walked back home where we chose breakfast for the next morning and relaxed in the Oceanside hot tub before Alice fell asleep at 8:30 PM. Another perfect day!

Wednesday, October 13

This morning started with another incredible breakfast and perfect Maine morning while the sun rose over the harbor. This time, we shared avocado toast topped with tomatoes, feta, and a fried egg plus brioche French toast with almonds and fruit!

We walked through the town of Boothbay Harbor in the morning and stopped in cute shops where we tasted and purchased some fun new oil and vinegar combinations (in particular, a Tuscan herb olive oil with pomegranate vinegar that we can’t wait to put on salads!). We also stopped in a dog store to get a present for Jackson, and in a stationary store where we bought a cooperative two-person board game. We wandered back to the Inn and then hit the road to Bath, ME where we headed to the Maine Maritime Museum.

The Maine Maritime Museum is located in Bath and sprawls over a campus where two old shipyards once stood. It was made in the 1990s by a maritime enthusiast who bought the land with several old buildings still intact and converted it into a monument of Maine shipbuilding and seafaring. The centerpiece of the museum is a massive abstract sculpture honoring the Wyoming - a massive 6-mast schooner (one of only 11 of that size ever built in the U.S., 7 of which were built here!). The to-scale sculpture shows the ship as she would have been while under construction, stern toward the river. Her 6 masts here are only ⅔ of the height they would have been in real life - they made these shorter to avoid having to light them up for air traffic at night! Please see the photos below for a large Josh with a small Wyoming and a small Josh with a large Wyoming.

The shipyard was active from the 1890s until the 1920s, building wooden ships while her neighbor, the Bath Iron Works, constructed massive steel military vessels right next door. The Wyoming was built in 1909 in only 8 months, and she was active until 1924 when she was wrecked off the coast of Chatham and lost beneath the waves. She was found again only a few years ago! With her 6000 lbs of coal cargo still intact.

We saw an amazing demonstration of how ships were built, keel first and stern to bow, on keel blocks and then wedged up onto a mechanism that would then slide the whole ship right into the water with much pomp and circumstance. They need a 3-5 degree angle with a very long runway for ideal launching, so the slightly-sloped land where the museum sits atop a wide and deep river was chosen as the perfect spot. Next we took a tour of the different museum buildings, seeing the old blacksmith shop, electric-powered tools, and specially-built building for processing the wood from entire trees for the ships. We had a snack of water and trail mix, then we saw a very interesting exhibit on the Maine lobster industry.

Next up, it was time for our Autumn Lights cruise down the Kennebunk River! Over 2 hours of cruising in beautiful weather as the sun slowly sank behind the trees and lit up the foliage, we spotted 6 lighthouses (2 with lights flashing!), 2 fog towers, 2 bald eagles in trees, and a harbor seal! It was beautiful and relaxing and romantic, and the weather could not have been more perfect.

We drove back to Boothbay to get dressed up for our elegant dinner at a waterfront steakhouse. On the way out, we selected the next morning’s breakfast and dropped our choices in the little blue box! Feeling fancy, we walked across the Boothbay Harbor footbridge (namesake of the brewery from Monday), which is completely covered in twinkle lights. Our destination: the flamethrower deck heaters of Coastal Prime, an elegant seafood and steak restaurant right on the water. When we arrived, they congratulated us on our honeymoon and gave us a seat right on the edge with a perfect view of the footbridge and adorable town.

For dinner, we enjoyed an arugula salad with beets, goat cheese, fresh berries and an orange vinaigrette for Alice and “one of the most delicious steaks I’ve ever eaten” for Josh. We paired them with a Maine blueberry mojito and an espresso martini. For sides, we shared whipped potatoes (with the texture of creamy, garlicky clouds) and a Mexican creamed corn that tasted just like streetcorn with cotija cheese and chipotle sauce. Both sides were unbelievably delicious. For dessert, Josh sipped on a fantastic cappuccino (recommended by the man at the next table), while Alice devoured a chocolate chip cookie skillet topped with a generous scoop of vanilla ice cream. We sat at the restaurant for several hours enjoying delicious food, a beautiful view, and great company (Gregg, our waiter)!

After dinner, we strolled back to the Inn where we snuggled up with some good books but fell asleep before we could read them.

Thursday, October 14

This morning, Josh watched the sun rise while Alice slept in. We enjoyed our final, incredible breakfast with harbor views and another day of absolutely perfect weather - this time, we shared ricotta crepes topped with blueberry compote, strawberries, and whipped cream and a “Power Bowl” of oats, almond butter, granola, local honey, and dried fruits. Feeling energized, we packed up and hit the road for the 90-minute drive to Portland.

Arriving in Portland, we parked along Commercial Street on the waterfront and enjoyed strolling the shops, basking in the summery weather, and smelling the ocean. Alice tasted a seasonal apple cider glazed donut from The Holy Donut (a Maine icon that makes donuts with local potato flour) and enjoyed a cappuccino.

Next up, we walked over to Shipyard Brewing Co., which makes Josh’s favorite seasonal Pumpkinhead Ale. We shared a flight in the tasting room and loved several beers so much we got a collection to bring home!

Next we drove a few minutes to a different part of the city where we checked out the Austin Street Brewery and tasted a beer made with just-picked “wet hops”! Alice’s college roommate Laura Trosser and her lovely boyfriend Philippe met us at the brewery and we all shared some vegetarian sushi rolls.

After finishing up, we walked nextdoor to the Rising Tide Brewing Co, where we shared tasting flights of eight of their eleven beers and got to sample their brand new Oktoberfest menu! Alice and Josh shared warm soft pretzels with beer-based mustard and a pimento grilled cheese. Laura and Philippe got a vegan and normal bratwurst, respectively, and tried the hummus side. It was all delicious!

Next, we all drove back downtown to the waterfront, where we embarked on a two-hour walk through all of downtown Portland, stopping to see boats on their marina, try a taste of the famous Gorgeous Gelato (a mix of peach and chocolate/caramel flavors), and look inside a store entirely devoted to funny socks.

Bidding Laura and Philippe farewell so they could go meet some other friends for dinner, we finished our time in Portland with a picnic comprised of menu highlights from three beloved Portland food scene icons: Eventide, Honey Paw, and Duck Fat. We enjoyed tasting their different cuisines and sitting outside in the beautiful night.

As the sun set, we tried to adventure out to the Portland Head Light (the beautiful, iconic Maine lighthouse), but sadly the park it sits in was already closed when we got there. We drove down to Ogunquit where we have just arrived and settled in to our new Inn, the Hartwell House. This classic old-style New England Inn is fully decked out for Halloween - it feels like we’re staying in an old Salem witch house! Our bed was decorated with kissing swans made out of towels, and inside our room the innkeepers left us a bucket of bubbly and a note of congratulations! We are now settling in for a movie night. Check out the Ogunquit page for the next leg of this trip!