Camden, Maine

Taking friends' advice can be iffy, but for our recent trip to Maine friends proved as good as gold. One told me to stay overnight in Camden on the coast an hour and a half from Acadia National Park. What a lovely town it was! A seaside, harbor town nestled in hills, as can be seen from the state park nearby with it's Mount Camden from which this photo was taken. The main street was given over to touristy shops and restaurants -- where we had a good dinner and saw interesting work by many local artisans. It was also full of flowers. The picture below was just one of many flower boxes in front of shops.

The town had the most elegant -- and beautifully kept-- city park I've ever seen with perfectly placed benches for looking at the harbor or the flowers or for relative seclusion while reading a book. The library sat at the edge of the park. There was a lovely statue of home town girl, poet Edna St. Vincent Millay. I was totally charmed. Another town a bit further down the road had a sign claiming, "most beautiful small town in Maine" and perhaps it was, but only a little more so than Camden. That town perhaps had more graceful old houses but that was about the only edge it had as far as I could see.

Beautiful Maine

Somehow I never got to Maine in any of my travels. That omission has been corrected. Rachel and I spent a beautiful four days mostly in Maine. My stereotypical picture was a rocky shore and the shores ARE very rocky. Not all with sculptural formations like the one in the picture but the shore is very different from here on Cape Cod.

A friend recommended stopping in Camden on our way up to Acadia National Park. It was definitely one of the most charming towns I've seen. It has a large, fairly formal town garden with a statue of Edna St. Vincent Millay who grew up there. There's a charming harbor, the stores and inns have beautiful flowers. Our motel had a B&B type breakfast with popovers and blueberry muffins, a small stone beach and lots of lounges on the rolling lawn.

Acadia has the highest mountain on the East Coast, Cadillac Mountain [named for the explorer]. 360 degrees views, on a clear day, which it was, are forever. We climbed Acadia mountain, 100 feet shorter but quite a strenuous climb, brag worthy for someone my age. Spectacular too and nice areas in pine forests.

On another friend's advice we eschewed Bar Harbor and stayed in small and quiet Southwest Harbor which was having it's annual flamingo festival -- the kind of rather silly event only small towns can pull off with high spirits -- the streets, shops, houses were adored with all kinds of flamingos. [No, not a life one to be seen]. We skipped the half hour long parade for the view from the mountain and a long walk on the rocky ocean shore. We had wonderful food, wonderful weather and good driving. A great trip.