For once, I'm not planning everything entirely in advance! In several weeks, we'll be in the Boston area for a meeting, but we have 4 nights before the meeting to go where we want. If the weather's decent, we may head up to Maine; lots of ideas but no commitments yet on the location.

We fly into Logan at about 4:30 Saturday. Rather than drive 2 +/- hours up into Maine and get there too late to do much but eat, I was thinking we could stop overnight somewhere on the way up, walk around a bit, and have a good seafood dinner. Also, that way, we could stop at Strawberry Banke the next morning as we headed further north.

Anyone have a suggestion for which town on the North Shore would be good for an overnight stay, preferably on the ocean (for our purposes, Cape Ann takes us too far east), with a great restaurant for seafood (lobster), not necessarily formal or expensive? (We used to live in Boston, and have been back several times, so we don't have any "must-see;" it's just whatever we feel like doing.) Salem or Marblehead might be possibilities, if anyone has good restaurant recs.

Thanks in advance.

How about Gloucester? Atlantic Ave is great for an dawn or dusk walk. Maine Street has some fabulous restaurants. We like Franklin Cafe, or you could dine on the water at the artist colony - Rudders's I think? The drive down 133 to get back on track is scenic.

You might also consider Newburyport.

Thanks for the ideas. I should have mentioned, the last time we were in Boston, 3 years ago, we spent an afternoon on Cape Ann, dinner in Rockport, spent the night in Gloucester. But it's still a good location. I'll check out Newburyport too.

You could just spend the night in Portsmouth and have dinner at Chauncey Creek in Kittery.

Both Marblehead and Salem have a wide variety of restaurants. You could probably find something to your liking. In Marblehead, the Landing is right on the water and beautiful for outdoor dining. Pellino's is a very nice Italian place, pricey but good. Once you pick up your car, it would only be about a half-hour drive, and you could take a nice walk around before dinner.

Salem has many excellent restaurants in a variety of price ranges. We live in the next town over and often find ourselves going there for dinners. Traditional; Thai; Indian; Mexican; pub; Italian. You name it, you'll find it. There are several decent places on Pickering Wharf, and several within easy walking distance of the Peabody-Essex Museum, which is a destination in and of itself.

Or you could go farther north and stay in, say, Ipswich. I don't know the restaurants there as well but we keep meaning to try them. Nearby Essex is home to several renowned seafood shacks. Perhaps other posters can give more specifics. Woodman's is the famous one, but others are supposed to be better.

If convenience along with scenery is a priority, I would suggest Newburyport. Its right off Rt95, and therefore less of a hassle to get to than Gloucester, Salem or Marblehead. It has nice places to walk around, good restaurants, nice stores and art galleries and a few nice inns. You could also take a walk on the beach out on Plum Island. From there it is about a 30 minute drive to Portsmouth.

I've returned, and we did end up spending the night in Newburyport. Such a scenic town, with many beautiful old federal-period buildings and not many tourists. We had a lobster dinner at Michael's Harborside. My lobster roll was huge, and one of the best I had during our week on the east coast. It was a good location for an early-evening arrival into Logan, and provided a good jumping-off point for the next several days in Maine.

Thanks, all, for the help!

Lexma90 - Glad you had a good time. I haven't been to Newburyport, so now I need to go there to see it for myself!