If You Like

If You Like

Flower Festival

In June the fields and roadsides of the Blue Hill Peninsula are decorated with the blues, pinks, and purples of one of Maine's most popular flowers, the lupine. Although the flower thrives throughout coastal Maine, nowhere is it more celebrated than here. The Deer Isle-Stonington Lupine Festival, the third Saturday in June, showcases everything you can do with the buds. Festival events include a bean cook-off, a rummage sale and bazaar, and an art show. There's also food and live music. A map indicating prime viewing spots is available from area businesses.

Foliage Food & Wine Festival

The Annual Foliage Food and Wine Festival (www.bluehillpeninsula.org/foodandwine) in mid-October brings the area's restaurants, chefs, and food producers together for a wine dinner, a champagne luncheon, and tasting events, all at the height of the autumnal riot of hardwood reds, yellows, and ochers (not to mention the magentas of the blueberry barrens). The second edition of the festival held in October 2007 was a major success, starring local chefs Mickey Jowders from Wescott Forge, and Arborvine's John Hikade, along with an ample cast of cheese makers, chocolatiers, vegetable growers, and cider brewers.

Gallery Hopping

If you're visiting the Blue Hill Peninsula area to collect antiques or find new artwork, you might want to pick up a copy of the annual Arts Guide, which showcases shops and galleries on Deer Isle-Stonington and the Blue Hill Peninsula. Make sure to see the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, which has tours every Wednesday at 1 PM, as well as interesting evening lectures. You can find galleries in and around downtown Deer Isle that exhibit oil and watercolor paintings, photography, and sculpture. Stonington has a few galleries, as does the village of Blue Hill. As you drive along the peninsula's winding roads, you can find studios selling everything from pottery to handmade paper.