|
I am
so happy you are considering spending the next part of your life here
in the Penobscot Bay area of Maine! If you are already a Mainer I hope
this information helps you make a smooth transition from one community
to another. If you currently live in another state I have selected some
useful links to help acquaint you with our world.
Unlike
most other REALTORS I do enjoy showing you some of the interesting things
and places we have here in addition to showing you some properties for
sale. I want you to be able to make a real estate decision based in part
on the lifestyle you could enjoy if you lived here. I love this part of
Maine! I bet you will, too!
Got a question? Ask Martha!
Lodging
If you
enjoy a Bed and Breakfast experience, I can recommend a few. My favorite
in Belfast is Harbor
View House of 1807 located on a hill with a view of the harbor
and an easy walk into town. The interior architecture and furnishings
are lovely here; the delicious breakfast in the morning is on a secluded
deck where you can watch the early morning fog lift off the harbor.
Mad
Captains’ House is my favorite in Belfast if you have children
with you and you are a dog lover. The owners of this B&B have a dog named
Captain, who is mad when he has to be outside on the porch during meal-time.
There is a guest room with a connecting children’s room for your family
and the owner will care for your children part of a day if you have business
to do on your own.
The
Homeport Inn is my favorite B&B in Searsport. Although it is located
on Main Street the guest rooms are quiet. The stately, historic sea captain’s
home is decorated with antiques and family heirlooms and the same innkeepers
have run this B&B since 1978. There is a small pub serving light meals
attached to the inn and both the Searsport Marine Museum and the ocean
are walking distance away. My office is about a mile and a half away.
If you
prefer a hotel atmosphere, the Belfast Comfort
Inn is my top choice. It is located on US Rt.1 so it is easy to
find and it was designed with the hallway leading to rooms running parallel
to the road so the window-less hallway is a sound buffer. All rooms have
a balcony and picturesque view of Penobscot Bay and there is an indoor
pool and restaurant, Ocean’s
Edge. In the warm months you can enjoy an outdoor ground-level
terrace facing the ocean.
For a
longer stay (a week or two) I have a few favorites, too. Phoenix
Row Suites is located in the center of downtown Belfast on the
third floor of an 1824 brick Federal building. Two of the suites have
rooftop gardens and views of the Belfast harbor and one has a fireplace.
This building was originally a Knights of Pythias assembly hall and has
tin ceilings and hardwood floors and is part of what is now a labyrinth
of owners’ residence, art gallery, performance space and art studio (the
owner is an artist who paints Belfast scenes and hangs some of his work
in the suites).
A
Belfast Guest Suite is another choice for a longer stay. It is
just one suite in the renovated (in 2002) ell of the home of the owners,
a photographer who has a downtown gallery and his wife. The suite has
a kitchenette and living room on the first floor and a bedroom upstairs
with a skylight and all a short walk into town or to the grocery store.
In Camden
I recommend The
Lodge and Cottages at Camden Hills which is a group of buildings
on five acres on a hillside about a mile outside the village of Camden
just at the edge of Camden Hills State Park. There is a distant view of
Camden Harbor from some of the guest quarters. Suites and efficiency apartments
have kitchenettes, gas fireplaces, living rooms and light and airy bedrooms.
Other Lodging
Seascape
Motel and Cottages on US Rt. 1, Belfast
Belfast
Harbor Inn on US Rt.1, Belfast
Camden
Riverhouse Inn and Hotel in Camden village
The
Alden House B&B on Church Street, Belfast
||
Back to Top || Ask
Martha! ||
Activities
In the
summer and early fall (mid-May through mid-October) a highlight for many
sea lovers is to set sail for a day-long or week-long cruise on a wooden
hulled windjammer
out of Camden Harbor. Often included is a lobster bake, a sea shanty sing-along
or an opportunity to help rig the sails.
Of course,
Bar Harbor and Acadia
National Park is just an hour away and offers bicycle rentals,
hiking trails, a sand beach, carriage trails (for bicycles and horses
and horse-drawn carriages) and the Jordan Pond House for afternoon tea
and popovers at a table on the lawn.
Locally, our favorite
place in the winter is The
Camden Snow Bowl, a municipally-owned family winter activity center
on Ragged Mountain just 5 miles north of Camden open to the public. There
are about 14 trails, two T-bars and a double chair lift. No trail is very
long or difficult but from the top you can see Penobscot Bay. In February
the National Toboggan Championships are held at the Camden Snow Bowl.
You can get a team together and participate or be a cheering spectator...a
lot of fun either way! There is a program there for fourth graders from
local schools to learn to ski for free, there is tubing, a snowboard terrain
park and my favorite program called, “The Long Lunch Hour” in
which you can buy a ski pass for $10 to ski any two weekday lunch hours
or from 6-8PM Friday evening.
Winter
skiing is best at Sugarloaf
USA about an hour and a half from the coast. There are condo rentals
if you want to stay awhile and there are cross-country ski trails, an
outdoor ice skating pond, challenging to easy downhill trails for skiers
and snowboarders and now there is tubing (sledding in a modified inner
tube).
There
are many beautiful driving tours I could recommend during the autumn in
Maine that show off our beautiful fall foliage. Usually, however, the
foliage
season (which begins in mid September) is just two or three weeks
long, so there is a narrow window of viewing possibilities for tourists…but
if you live here it is easy to enjoy!
||
Back to Top || Ask
Martha! ||
Parks
Buy a
picnic lunch at the Camden
Deli or the Belfast
Co-Op and head off to a picnic:
Lake
Saint George in Liberty, where you can also rent a canoe for the
day
Fernald’s
Neck Nature Conservancy in Lincolnville, where you can hike or
paddle around the Neck in the fresh water surrounding it
Fort
Point State Park in Stockton Springs, where no fort remains but
there are picnic spots at the ocean nestled in the pines
Fort
Knox State Park in Prospect, built of locally cut granite in the
mid 1800s and used during the Civil and Spanish American Wars to protect
the mouth of the Penobscot River
Camden
Hills State Park in Camden, where you can hike up a mountain including
the 600’ high Mt. Battie, drive up to the top of Mt. Battie or picnic
at the ocean
Moose
Point State Park in Searsport, where you can walk out to a point
of land along the ocean and see a panoramic view of Penobscot Bay
Camden
Amphitheatre and Heritage Park offer a grassy knoll beside the
harbor or a stone terrace to enjoy a lunch
Vesper
Hill Chapel and gardens in Rockport is where I was married nearly
30 years ago and is especially lovely in late spring and early summer
||
Back to Top || Ask
Martha! ||
Libraries
Several
communities I serve have wonderful libraries for different reasons.
Appleton
has a small, yet vibrant library staffed by volunteers. There is a monthly
book group and efforts are under way to build a new library. Several authors
and poets live in Appleton, including Maine’s first Poet Laureate, Kate
Barnes.
Belfast
Library has a wonderful feeling inside even though it has been renovated
and renovated again. Lots of computers to use if you are visiting in town,
a community function room that seats 100, reading rooms, a well designed
children’s area and on the top floor is a wealth of historical information
about Belfast and all the small towns in our county.
Blue
Hill has a large library relative to the size of the town itself
because it serves the whole peninsular. Old movies are shown on Saturdays,
there is a Writer’s Group and there is a story hour and play group for
children.
Camden
has arguably the most spectacular library in the Penobscot Bay region!
Not only is the physical building rich in history and art, the grounds
were originally designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and are a slice of
quiet beauty in the center of the village just a stone’s throw from US
Rt.1. Edna St.Vincent Millay graduated from Camden High School and the
library has related memorabilia from the years she lived in Camden and
Union. The event schedule (music, art, travel, horticulture, ornithology,
land use planning, etc.), for this library offers a presentation nearly
every day…two on some days!
Searsport
also has a stone library, built in 1910 using stones transported from
the shoreline at Moose Point. This little gem of a library with oak woodwork
inside was nearly doubled in size in 1998 with a tasteful addition. A
strong box was built into the wall when the building was constructed to
be opened in 100 years…which is almost here!
||
Back to Top || Ask
Martha! ||
Restaurants
Chase’s
Daily in Belfast is vegetarian and organic, but when you taste
the food you just think about how good it is. Owned and operated by the
Chase family (one is the cook, one is the baker, one is the artist of
works hung on the walls and one is the host) who actually have a family
farm just outside of Belfast and for the most part, grow the food they
serve. Strawberry rhubarb tarts, home made French bread, omelets, soups,
burritos, raspberry buckwheat muffins…it is the place to BE and BE SEEN!
Open Saturday and Sunday brunch, breakfast and lunch and some dinners
in the summer. Closed on Mondays.
Bay
Wrap is a sandwich shop in Belfast that has a wonderful Thai wrap
and lots of other interesting combinations. Pack a Bay Wrap picnic!
Bell
The Cat in Belfast started out as just a coffee shop in a bookstore,
but it has grown to offer a full range of soups, sandwiches and coffees
and teas and is still in the bookstore. Also a good place to have a picnic
lunch packed for your day trip!
Darby’s
Restaurant in Belfast is a real every-day-every-meal restaurant
owned by Jerry Savitz, a “back to the land” young man who came to Belfast
in the 60s to find a better life. He was a lobster fisherman for a time
and then opened a restaurant. He now owns two and a lunch wagon. The food
is really prepared in the kitchen here (not frozen food service stuff)
and the atmosphere is old Belfast…tin ceilings, beautiful wooden bar and
shelving behind the bar and sunny, plant-filled windows.
The
Mermaid Pub is in Searsport in the lower level of The Homeport
Inn and serves dinners starting at 5:00 PM every evening except Mondays.
It has a Great Britain atmosphere including a game of darts on the wall
and a jigsaw puzzle you can help put together in front of the fireplace.
It offers a full menu including soup, salad, dinners and dessert in a
quiet spot near the ocean.
Francine’s
Bistro is in Camden and is probably my favorite restaurant in
the area in terms of the food. You can sit at the bar and watch the chef
in the open kitchen prepare wonderful French masterpieces, sit in the
intimate dining area (just seats 40 or so) or sit outside at a table in
the summer. You are likely to meet the diners at the next table and get
to know what’s happening in Camden in addition to having a memorable meal.
||
Back to Top || Ask
Martha! ||
Airports
Belfast
has a municipal airport that offers charter service to Portland (currently
at $295. for two or three people).
Portland
Jetport has daily flights to New York and beyond.
Bangor
International Airport is where many of the Portland flights originate,
so sometimes there is a stop in Portland.
||
Back to Top || Ask
Martha! ||
Museums
The most
comprehensive museum in our area is the Penobscot
Marine Museum in Searsport located just off Rt.1. It consists
of eight historic buildings and several large sea captains’ homes in a
village setting on two streets in town. There is an art gallery of maritime
paintings, interactive exhibits with a different theme each year (we’ve
had “Lobsters” and “Pirates” the last two years), permanent exhibits including
“Working the Bay” about the Penobscot Bay area and “Travels to the Pacific
Rim” about our local sea captains who sailed clipper ships to China. There
is also a genealogical library for people interested in tracing their
family’s history to a sea captain and one of the largest nautical gift
shops in Maine which is a great place for Christmas shopping.
If you
are interested in woodworking, maritime history or art you need to drive
to Liberty and visit the Davistown
Museum. Located in a historic building in town is an array of
tools and information about the pre-industrial Maine trades they represent.
There are a couple surprises here as well: one is the gallery of contemporary
and antiquarian art, including works by over 25 Maine sculptors, painters
and photographers. The other is (beginning in March of 2006) there is
a café here! By the way, across the street is a retail store called Liberty
Tool Company with a phenomenal collection of old tools that are
mostly artfully displayed and for sale.
An annual
outdoor quasi-museum and quasi-fair you should know about is The Common
Ground Country Fair in Unity. During a harvest weekend (Thursday
through Sunday) at the end of September each year is an event sponsored
by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. On their 250-acre
fairgrounds is a combination of organic vegetables for sale, entertainment
like fiddling and singing, demonstrations for things like building a post
and beam barn and various composting options, vendors selling things like
solar panels and birdhouses, and dozens of food vendors offering things
like blueberry pie, hot sausage & peppers and freshly squeezed lemonade.
And I
want to add another not-really-a-museum: The Colonial
Theatre in Belfast. Built in 1912, it opened the same day the
Titanic set sail and then was renovated in the early 1940s with an Art
Deco façade. When I was a child I attended a baton twirling contest held
on the stage of this historical treasure. About 10 years ago it was tastefully
divided into three movie screens and two stages and it retains much of
its original charm. In addition to popular block-buster-type movies, the
Colonial Theatre shows independent and foreign films.
||
Back to Top || Ask
Martha! ||
Education
There
are several school districts in the area I serve for K-12:
The Belfast
area school district (including children from the towns of Northport,
Morrill, Searsmont) is School
Administrative District 34
A private
alternative K-8 school is located just 5 miles north of Belfast, called
The
Toddy Pond School in Swanville. Founded in 1979 in a rented residential
home, the school now has its own building and offers innovative, hands-on
learning to bright students who may be bored in public school. There are
many outdoor activities, field trips (like gathering debris on Sears Island
on Coast Clean-Up Day) and competitive mind activities (like the chess
club). A highlight is the annual Robotics competition which encourages
children to engineer a workable robot by programming a computer. Alumni
have gone on to law school and found interesting jobs in the fields of
music, education, sporting equipment and journalism, to name a few.
Searsport
and Stockton Springs students attend School
Administrative District 56
Orland
has an elementary school, Orland
Consolidated School.
Blue
Hill has a public elementary school, Blue
Hill Consolidated School and a private elementary school, Bay
School. It also has a private high school, Liberty
School and a quasi-public high school, George
Stevens Academy.
Lincolnville
has an elementary school, Lincolnville
Elementary School and high school students from Lincolnville go
to Camden Hills
Regional High School.
Hope
and Appleton have their own elementary schools, Hope
Elementary School and Appleton
Village School. High school students from Hope and Appleton attend
Camden Hills Regional
High School.
If you
are interested in Home
Schooling, here is a website for you!
There
are two options for higher educational in my region, Unity
College in Unity specializing in environmental sciences and University
of Maine Hutchinson Center in Belfast offering both televised
courses and live instruction in business management, social work and the
arts, among other things. However, the University
of Maine at Orono is just an hour away from most communities I
serve.
||
Back to Top || Ask
Martha! ||
|
