Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor, Maine

Maine was everything we thought it would be, small, historical, beautiful towns and countryside.  Both of us grew up in Fort Lauderdale, Florida so we were enthralled with the architecture of the houses, buildings and barns.  Amazed that you can drive through any village where there are houses that are 200 years old and still occupied.

 We settled in the Bar Harbor area.  One afternoon we went to search out a restaurant for our required lobster dinner.  While the town of Bar Harbor itself might be lovely, there were people everywhere.  Being an old historical town there was little parking and it was difficult to just walk down the sidewalks with all the people.  You couldn't see the harbor very well, what with the huge Whale Watching ships blocking the views and coming and going constantly.  Hope the whales didn't mind all these ships coming out to watch them with a couple of hundred people on each ship!!   We couldn't figure out where all these folks came from. 

We had our lobster dinner and it was OK.  Tried to walk around down by the harbor, but one of the many huge whale watching ships had pulled in and people where pouring into the area.  We decided to head back to the campground and try another day. 

We figured out where all the people were coming from, when we went to Acadia National Park the next day.  We drove up to Cadillac Mountain, got out of the car and looked around.  There, in the harbor, were two huge cruise ships!  Now we knew where all the people came from.  The cruise ships kept coming the whole time we were there, so we didn't bother going back to Bar Harbor.  Apparently, this is cruise ship time and when they are not there, Bar Harbor is a nice place to visit.  It is geared toward the tourist.  We would describe Bar Harbor as the Key West of Maine

 Here's a great web page on Bar Harbor.  http://www.visitmaine.com/region/downeast/bar_harbor/   Don't let our experience stop anyone from going there.

The good thing was, Bar Harbor is not why we came to the area.  Acadia National Park was.  http://www.nps.gov/acad/      You can click on their photos, and you can find ours at the end of this post.

Acadia is the second most visited National Park in the country.  We can see why.  It is easily accessable and gives you some beautiful views of the coast of Maine and the surrounding area.  We will make the trip back to Maine and Acadia again.  It should not be missed.  Rather than go on and on.  Here are our pictures of our time there.

The first set of pics are of the entire area, Mount Desert Island, which encompasses Bar Harbor, Acadia and the rest of the island.  We drove around the island one day.  These are not pictures of Bar Harbor or Acadia, just pics of the island, which includes a picture of Bass Head Lighthouse.  As usual, with all of these pictures, click the link, select slide show and hit F-11 on your computer to enlarge. 

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/DriveAroundMountDesertIslandMaine?authkey=Gv1sRgCKGW0veqyN6c3wE#

The next two sets of pictures are from Acadia.  The first day was overcast and are general pictures from around the park.  The second day was glorious with lots of sun and are of Cadillac Mountain.  We could go back a hundred times and not get bored with Acadia.  Wonderful. 

http://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/AcadiaNationalPark?authkey=Gv1sRgCIah4v7P-amKhgE#


http://picasaweb.google.com/ChrisTorrance/CadillacMountainAcadiaNationalPark?authkey=Gv1sRgCM6Y4cn4orn1GQ#