Portland, ME

After several days on the road, we arrived Thursday in Scarborough, ME, which is just a few miles from Portland.  On Friday we drove to South Portland where the port is located.  It is a big tourist area now, but we were told that in the 80's it was run down and not a place you would want to visit.
Once we found a place to park, we walked around for a while to see all of the shops and restaurants.

 

 One of several streets up from the waterfront that are filled with gift shops, boutiques and restaurants.

 

 There are still a few cobble stone streets in the area.  Not easy to walk on! But really neat to see.

 

Portland Lobster Company is located next to the tour boat and looked like the place to get a lobster roll or just about any seafood dish.  Very popular and busy.

 

We took a two hour "Lighthouse Lovers" boat tour on Casco Bay.   Saw many lighthouses and even passed a small island full of Sea Lions.

 

 

 

 This is our tour boat is coming in.  It was a great day for a boat tour!

 

This boat was docked across the canal from the tour boat.  It has "Joseph F. Kennedy" on the side of the boat.  Don't  know exactly what it was used for, but it may have been the yacht tender to take passengers to and from their yacht.

Now that the tour boat has docked, we are just waiting in line before boarding.

 

Part of the Berlin Wall on display on the dock.

 

 

 

Saw this lobsterman on our way out into the bay.  We saw many lobster boats and buoys along the way

 

 



 

This was the first lighthouse along our trip.  There are quite a few lighthouses in and around Casco Bay.  The most famous and most photographed is the Portland Head Lighthouse shown in the picture below.  

I did a watercolor painting of the lighthouse many years ago.

 

 

 

Our tour guide (on the right holding the microphone) did a great job and.....he was CUTE!

 

We sat on the upper deck and had a great view.

 

 

One side of this lighthouse always stays clean due to the large waves in the winter hitting the side and sometimes the waves are higher than the lighthouse.

 

Just liked the seagull on the buoy. 

We passed this small island with lots of Sea Lions.  

 

We were told that this yacht belonged to Eric Clapton.



 

 A nice park located at one end of the city.  There was a wedding in progress as we passed by.

 

 There is a ferry system that will take you and your car from Portland to Nova Scotia.  You can rent a bunk to sleep while on this 12 hour overnight trip.  When you wake up in the morning you are in Nova Scotia.

The ferry below is a smaller ferry that takes passengers (not vehicles) to several of the islands in Casco Bay where people have vacation homes.

 

Above picture is just another great view of the city as we were coming back into port.

 

 

Once we were back on land, we decided to take a 45 minute tour of the city by trolley.

 

We saw lots of statues and learned a lot of history about Portland on the trolley tour. 

 

More statues and cobble stone streets.

 

 

The statue above is of a lobsterman pinning a lobster.  This was an early method used to secure the lobster claws with wooden pins.  Todays lobsterman use rubber bands on the claws.

 

During the land and sea tour, we kept seeing airliners landing and taking off.  Once we got to a certain area on the trolley tour, we had a great view of the Portland Jetport.

 

 

Lots of great old buildings and homes.

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the picture below, most of the city buildings were built using bricks.  After almost all of the city burned down three times, it was decided they would only use bricks to rebuild.  Portland is the largest city in Maine with a population of around 67,000 people.

 

 

We had wonderful weather during our visit to this great city.