O N T O U R: BAR HARBOR AND ACADIA NATIONAL PARK ” MAINE
The advent of the modern cruise liner has introduced to a much wider public many delightful leisure destinations that probably, outside their home country, would never attract visitors from overseas in any numbers. Not only do the ship operators take their massive liners to these frequently out of the way coves and inlets, but they promote them in their brochures and marketing material, often up to two years in advance. Do watch out when next browsing through the offerings of P & O, Princess and the like.
Bar Harbor, Maine, close by Canada on the northern extremities of the US eastern seaboard, is one of these places. It features in the brochures but is not really known. It should be. Four hundred and fifty miles from New York, 250 miles north of Boston it will be visited by 71 cruise ships this year in a season that lasts from mid-May to the beginning of October. However what you can see in a day is, in truth, very limited. Far better to take the local air shuttle up from one of the main gateway airports and rent a car and take in scenery that reminds one of Scotland and parts of Canada, but is much warmer, the Atlantic Ocean ensuring that it never gets too hot. You can also motor down easily in a day from Montreal or Toronto and an interesting alternative route is via Halifax, Nova Scotia, and the high speed catamaran across the Sound, which takes 2” hours.
Bar Harbor is the main town of the badly misnamed Mount Desert Island, connected to the mainland by a single bridge and dominated by Acadia National Park, the first national park in the US to be privately funded and covering some 28,000 acres with 30 miles of dramatic coastline. Try to avoid July and August. It is one of the top ten most popular national parks in the whole of the United States.
Bar Harbor itself is not much more than a fishing village, dominated by Main Street and a few turnings on either side. The French first came here 400 years ago but nothing much happened until it was discovered by the rich and the very rich 150 years ago. It vied with Newport as the place to build your summer cottage, huge mansions where the Astors, Morgans, Carnegies and later the Fords spent their six week”s summer holidays. All this came to an abrupt end in 1947 when a massive fire raged through much of the island destroying many of the most spectacular houses. The millionaires never returned, the remaining properties mostly converted into hotels, bed and breakfast establishments and condominiums. What you can see today is nevertheless spectacular, the B & B”s a way of enjoying a style of life now, for the most part, passed into history. For 24 or 48 hours you can pretend you were Cornelius Vanderbilt, and just like him enjoy one of the fine restaurants that abound on the island, 72 at the last count. One hundred years ago the grand summer houses, or cottages as they were called, of the very rich often did not even have a kitchen. The families used to dine out at the restaurants, leaving the servants to fend for themselves in the pantry. It is still very much bed and breakfast!
On the face of it Acadia is not the place for bicycle fanatics, or even those who fancy perhaps a couple of hours of fierce peddling. How wrong you can be. From 1913 until 1940, under the auspices of the Rockefeller family some 57 miles of rustic carriage roads were constructed within the national park, 16 feet wide motor car free byways that twist and turn through the forest and wonderful woodlands. There is an ”easy” short loop from the visitors centre past the splendidly titled Witch Hole Pond, 6.8 miles long, that can be covered in as short a time as one hour, plus much longer experiences designed for the would-be ”Tour de France” participant. In truth the best way is not to rush it and just take things easy admiring the views and perhaps stopping to look at some of the 16 unique stone bridges designed and constructed to blend in with the magnificent landscape. If cycling is not for you the gradients are such that walking is easy and it is always downhill to Bar Harbor in the evening.
And there is always the alternative, and perhaps best way of tackling the park, hiring a horse and buggy, complete with driver. After all that was what the carriage drives were built for in the first place.
The park is full of wild animals, most of them (allegedly) friendly. Deer, foxes and in particular, the badger. These magnificent furry creatures are some of natures finest builders, their dams able to stand up to the worst that the winter can bring. As you tour past the many rivers and lakes in the park you will see felled trees by the waterside. The beavers have been to work, floating the results for their efforts into the streams and lakes and building the most impressive dams capable of seriously resisting all that the winter can display.
If you are into sea food Bar Harbor is the place for you. In fact many years ago in the days of the mansions the staff were fed so much lobster that a strike ensued. ”Lobster, lobster and nothing but lobster. Is there nothing else you can give us,” was the cry. http://www.barharborinfo.com