Portland, Maine

We had an amazing weekend in Portland, the city charmed us to the point that Heather picked up real estate brochures on the way back to Boston. She just put it the right way – it was like if someone dreamed up a city for us - walkable, funky, artsy, compact, friendly, small enough to be affordable, musical…..Portland has it all. Well, except maybe jobs and, um, I don't know a single person that lives there.

We took the Amtrak Downeaster up from Boston Saturday morning, $20 each way for the 2 ½ hour ride. Not bad. Grabbed a cab from the train station, the cabbie dropped us at J’s Oysters right on the water where we caught the first half of the ND-Michigan game.


We moved to Nappi's at halftime and watched the rest of the game there. Solid win for the Irish, we’re now #10! Checked into the Portland Harbor Hotel, in the background in the picture above, which was extremely nice (although I’d say overpriced) and right in the middle of the Old Port area, then walked over to the Fore Street Grill for dinner where we had a four star (in my book) meal at the bar. The Fore Street Grill was interesting, from the outside there is no sign and it looks almost like an industrial building, on the inside it is a trendy restaurant. Mussels, great wine, swordfish, green beans with mustard sauce, beets, champagne and dessert. We weren’t messing around.

Here's part of Fore Street, the slight jog in the street creates the sense of enclosure similar to Charles Street in Boston, which when combined with the architecture and lively mix of shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, apartments and condos makes this a great space:




Custom House Wharf:



Next we wandered around, did some shopping, had a beer (ok, a few) at a very cozy Irish pub on Fore Street, then headed to the Alehouse to catch some local bands. The bands weren’t playing, but we were entertained by the strange bouncer who told us all about getting in the way of a chainsaw during a fight when he was 15. The story turned out to be a big lie, but he wasn’t lying when he pointed us down the street for actual live music at the Big Easy. Very different from the Boston Big Cheesy, this Big Easy was a cool dive, we saw As Fast As, who kicked ass!

A pedestrian alley, active even at night:




Sunday we woke up, wandered some more, and ended up in a grittier section of Portland about 10-15 minutes from the Old Port area. Had one of the best brunches I’ve ever had at Five Fifty-Five, a converted firehouse. More wandering, including the indoor public market (above) - a collection of local butchers, fish, bakeries, produce, etc. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, everything was so fresh I wished I hadn't just had a huge brunch.

We wandered for the rest of the day, and saw lots of cool stuff. Luckily, all the pictures I took on my screen-less camera actually came out ok.

More cool streets & architecture:



A fantastic pocket park we stumbled across:



A HUGE cruise ship in from England and Ireland looming over the city: