travel

Day 1

For my one year wedding anniversary, the hubby and I went up to Portland, ME for a long weekend. I love exploring new places, taking in new sights, and trying new restaurants! I’ve heard GREAT things about Portland, so it seemed to be the best place to go!

We left early on Saturday morning and went straight to the Holy Donut. It’s a little breakfast place that makes homemade donuts using real Maine potatoes. To say they are tasty is an understatement! We ordered three: chocolate/sea salt, maple glaze with bacon, and lemon. Unfreaking believable! They are definitely worth the calories! 7/17/17- I’ve visited Holy Donut again in later years and both times ordered a dozen because I couldn’t decided which ones to try!

After fueling up on donuts, we walked around the downtown area by the water, wandered around the cobblestone streets, and went in and out of different shops. For lunch, we went to Duckfat, which is a small sandwich shop. We split an order of poutine and each ordered a panani – roasted pork belly for him and overnight duck confit for me.  This was my second time having poutine and it was much better than the first. (Sorry, Stratton, VT, yours was no where near as good!). Duckfat’s poutine wasn’t overloaded with gravy and it had just enough cheese crumbles!

After Duckfat, we went and checked into our B&B. We stayed at the Inn on Carleton. This charming B&B served amazing breakfast! But let’s not get too distracted. After checking in we went to check out the historic Portland Head Light, which is situated on the shores of Fort Williams Park Around 4 p.m. we headed back downtown and went for a pre-dinner snack at Eventide Oysters. Of every restaurant we went to this weekend, this was my favorite! The oysters were the best I’ve ever had! We put our name down, got a drink and stood by the oyster shucking station. There were over 20 oysters to choose from! We watched which oysters were going the fastest and decided those must be the best, so once we were seated we ordered three different kinds: John’s River, Glidden Point, and North Haven. They were the largest oysters I’ve ever seen! We tried to pace ourselves, but that was useless! A little cool fact; while we were there, a TV show was being filmed on the restaurant, so you know it must be good!

We continued our foodie day and went to Sebago Brewing Co, which was a short walk down the street to kill some time before our 7:45 dinner reservation. We split a flight of beers. We tried Simmer Down, Lemon Drop, Frye’s Leap IPA, and Whistle Punk Double IPA.  From there we headed to The Grill Room for dinner. We each ordered steak with shared sides of green beans and mushroom risotto.

Day 2

Today was a total washout, so we headed up to Freeport and did some outlet shopping. My hubby was a great sport; he’s not exactly the shopping type. But he walked around for a few hours in the rain. We did stop for lunch at Azure Cafe and each ordered a cup of clam chowder and split lobster mac and cheese. From there we headed back to Portland and went to two more local breweries. Now the hubby is happy!  First stop was Rising Tide. This brewery reminds me of your typical brewery, located in a warehouse with all the machines in the background, which makes you wonder; how on earth do they make this? We each got a flight, which was four samples each.  My husband loves IPAs, but I’m more of a light Belgium beer drinker. Next up was Liquid Riot in downtown Portland.  It’s a brewery and distillery all in one and it’s awesome! It had a great setup inside, with lots of tables/chairs. We did another flight here. One of the beers is called Albino Stout. It’s there version of a white “stout”. It looks like one of my summery light beers, but it has a rich chocolaty flavor like a stout. We stayed here for a while, each got another beer and enjoyed talking to the bar tenders.

So now that we had done LOTS of drinking, we went to our anniversary dinner at Boone’s Fish House and Oyster Room. They have a great two level deck, but unfortunately since it was raining, we had to sit inside. We still had a great table next to the window overlooking the water. Up to this point, we had not had too much seafood, but that was about to change! I ordered a steamed lobster and my husband ordered a pasta dish with shrimp, lobster, scallops, and bacon in it! What a wonderful way to cap off our 1 year anniversary!

Day 3

Today we took the ferry over to Peaks Island, a short trip from downtown Portland. This is the most populous island in Casco Bay, Maine; it has some shops and restaurants with great views of the Atlantic. Went rented bikes for a couple hours; it’s only about a four mile trip around the island, so we took our time and stopped for a lot of pictures! The backside of the island had the best water views. There were a bunch of small beaches with benches along the way that would have been great spots to stop and have a picnic.

We only stayed on the island for about two and a half hours before taking the ferry back to Portland. For our final food stop of the weekend, we had a late lunch at Portland Lobster Co. This little clam shack is right on the water. You order food at the window, find a seat, then pick it up when it’s ready. With “lobster” in the restaurant name, I felt obligated to of course order lobster! We had a lobster roll and lobster mac and cheese again (can never have too much of it!) It was the perfect ending to a great weekend in Portland!