2 Days in Portland Maine? Help!
 

Hello,

We are getting ready to leave on Saturday for Portland, ME. We are staying at the Chadwick Inn. What should we plan on doing while we are there? Anything we shouldn't miss? Good restaurants?

It will be me and my fiance. We're in our early 30s and are up for just about anything. We're not into expensive restaurants. This will be our first vacation in a long time. From Portland we are driving up to Camden for another two days. I'll post separately for that one.

Thanks guys!
Rachel

Normally I would tell you to take a 25 min drive down to Ocean Park for a walk on the miles of beach, to stop at a casual seafood place on Pine Point and for some homemade ice cream at Len Libby's Candy Store. Or a drive out to Cape Elizabeth and the Lobster Shack at Two Lights Park. But unfortunately this weekend is supposed to be nothing but wind and rain, so maybe ask at your inn for the local guide to museums and performances, and plan an indoor weekend that won't be just staring out of the hotel window saying "well what are we gonna do now?"

Here's hoping for good weather! If not a little rain can always be relaxing :-)

Since you'll have a car, be sure to take a drive to the Portland Headlight. Very romantic. (Bring a warm jacket, as it's chilly and windy there.) Also romantic is drinks in the cocktail lounge atop the Eastland Park Hotel.

Rae, On our trip to main last year, we (wife, 16 yr old son & myself) spent a day in Portland. Here is what we did on that day:
Day 8, Friday, 29JUN07
Weather has cooled down, in the low 80’s, & humidity went down & not so many bugs around. Very nice day. Out of the room about 9:15am. Going to Portland, about 15 – 20 min drive. Traffic not a problem.

Parked at the Spring St parking ramp. Went for breakfast at a great place called Marcy’s Diner. It was across the street from the backside of the ramp, at the corner of Oak & Free streets. Harley Davidson/Motorcycle memorabilia every where. Food & Service very good. Had to wait about 15 mins to be seated because it was very busy. They had booths, & also stools at the counter. Prices were very good. 3 of us with large breakfast for under $20 plus tip. At least half the people, if not more, that were there knew the people working at the place. Definitely a local gem. Also liked the music they played, & so did my 15 yr old, & didn’t seem to bother anybody else in the dinner. Nothing like a little Led Zeppelin to get you going in the morning.

Walked over to the the Maine Historical Society/ Wadsworth-Longfellow house. Can only go thru on a guided tour, which they were giving on the hour & half hour. Buy the tix at the visitor center. They have AAA discount here. We waited about 20mins for the 11am tour. There are some museum/history rooms in the visitor center, so visited them while waiting. The whole Longfellow family seemed to have some type of artistic sense to them. The house tour was very good. Learned a lot about the family. This is the house where Henry Wadsworth Longfellow grew up. The tour lasted about 1 hr.

We then walked to the Victoria Mansion (or also called Morse-Libby house), about 6 – 7 blocks from the Longfellow house. They offered a guided tour only, on the 1/4 & 3/4 hr. We got there just as the 12:15pm tour was starting. Also have AAA discount for the tour here.

If you do both the Wadsworth-Longfellow & the Victoria, definitely do WL House first. If you do Victoria first, you will then be disappointed in WL. Or if time to only do one or the other, I suggest doing the Victoria Mansion.

The Victoria is very opulent, & fantastic. You can tell by starting with the outside that it will wow you. It was built by a guy who made his money in New Orleans right after the Civil War. The couple who lived there had no children, so the surviving wife sold it to another family who had children & was handed down until almost destroyed but then given to the society to keep. It was a very good tour & lasted about 45 mins, thru the first & second stories out of 3. The tour guide at Victoria told us that Portland also has a duck tour that starts at the water front & goes out into the bay. But we didn’t have time to do that.

Then there was also an LL Bean outlet right across Free St, from the parking ramp. Wife can’t get enough of that so we had to go in there also. 1 thing to note is that if you buy things at merchants in downtown Portland, have the store people stamp your parking ticket & you get a free hour of parking for each stamp. Don’t know if that worked for the historical houses, because I forgot to ask. Even with the 1 stamp from LL Bean, we ended up paying $3 for about 4hrs of parking. Have to interject here that my 15 yr old also spoke up about really liking Portland, & especially Marcy’s Diner. Quite a mix of people walking around Portland: business people, college age kids, tattooed & pierced people (I think this is 1 of things that enamored our son to the city), tourists. Never felt unsafe at all. But didn’t really notice any younger school age kids around. I assumed that their schools were out for the summer.
We also spent a day in Camden & stayed a few nights in Freeport, here is the link to my report on that:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads..._name=Bill%5FI

The previous post appears to not take you directly to the post, try this one:
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35026508

i live quite a bit north of portland, but lots of people go down to the old port sectioin of the city to party. this site will tell you what's happening and click on their restaurant page too: http://www.portlandoldport.com/
all the listings take you to more info a/or web site. lots of microbrews if you like beer.
i see that your b&b's site lists restaurants too. also art galleries - a good choice for a rainy day. and says you are walking distance to old port.
there is good shopping in the area. the portland mall is ok - nothing special. freeport is fun and has outlet stores. more outlets in portsmouth, nh.
i would go to the beach. someplace rocky on the coast would be even better. the ocean is very dramatic with a storm like this.
do bring warm clothes and raingear.

well i'm off to watch the debate.

Funny...I'm from Portland, OR so I'm kinda bummed and excited at the same time about the rain. I think I'll be breaking out some of my old gear...hello wool clogs!

Any restaurants that are good? Someone told us to go to Gilbert's Chowder house and Ri Ra's. Either of them any good?

Great restaurants include Fore Street, 555 and Back Bay Grill.