Staying Active on Vacation, Portland Maine Edition

The hubs and I went to Portland, Maine this past weekend for the Old Port Half Marathon. There was so much to see and do there, that I wanted to write a post about it!

We arrived on Friday afternoon, around 2:00 and stopped off at our hotel. Our room wasn't ready, since we were so early, so we decided to check out the waterfront. 

All of the views were like this! Oh my! We checked out the ferries, and grabbed a schedule for Saturday. We knew that we wanted to go to one of the islands, but we weren't sure which one. After we got the schedule, we started to walk up and down the waterfront, and scope out all of the shops.

You have to stop for ice cream, though, so we made a quick detour. Captain Sam's had really excellent ice cream, made fresh! I stopped to take the is pic for my buddy, Bryce, since alligators are his favorite!
We saw a piece of the Berlin Wall while we were trying to get a good shot of the waterfront.

 And we stopped at Alex and Ani and got me a bracelet to commemorate my 25th half marathon, and a cute owl one for the teenie because she likes owls.

We checked back at the hotel at around 4 because they said our room would be ready by then, but it wasn't! Yikes! We just wanted to get our bags out of the car! The hubs was carrying around my laptop because he didn't want to leave it in a parking lot.
We went back to the waterfront and found a great bar, called the Porthole. We ended up there on Saturday night as well.

In honor of the race, he got a Blueberry Ale and some clams, and we sat out on the deck and enjoyed the cooler Maine air. There was a rep there from Shipyard and we scored some free tech shirts. Afterwards, we finally got to check in (it was about 5:00!) and headed to Congress Street to have dinner. It was a lovely, hilly walk, a little over a mile, and we got to see some more of Portland as we walked there.
Boda is Thai Tapas, and we ordered all kinds of delectables.

Sticky rice ball (hubs loved it, me not as much), asparagus wrapped in bacon (asparagus should always be wrapped in bacon!), pork satay, beef skewers (I think it had some kind of coconut sauce on it) and lobster chips. The hubs didn't care for the chips, they were very spicy, and she took them off the bill! We were shocked, it wasn't their fault that he didn't like them, and they were inexpensive, but it was a nice gesture. Everything else was amazing, and I was so full when we left!
The next morning, we hopped on the ferry to go to Peaks Island. The hubs read that you could tour it by bicycle, which you can rent on the island, and it was only a four mile ride around the whole island!

 Views from the ferry ride!

this one is from the island, oops!

The bike rentals were only $20 for two bikes for two hours! Bonus! They were in pretty decent shape as well! We were given a map of the island and we headed right out! The views were insanely gorgeous everywhere!

We left the road to hike out to this crazy place! people were climbing to the top via some random path, but we decided we liked the ground just fine!

 This is the graffiti inside. The hubs said it is leftover from war days (not the graffiti, the structure)

 Part of the path was covered in boards to keep your feet dry. It was crazy rickety but so fun to walk on.

our bikes!

The only other time we stopped was when we passed this sculpture garden. Visitors stop at this part of the beach and make these crazy sculptures out of the rocks. I may or may not have taken a small rock with me when I left.

ever see the Blair Witch project? Kind of reminds of that one part...

this was in someone's yard

Gotta take a selfie!

We spent a little over an hour touring the island and then we visited some stores and had lunch. Poor planning had us missing the ferry, if we skipped lunch we could have caught the ferry and had lunch in Portland. Oh well, we walked around a bit after lunch, and had some ice cream at their gift shop to kill the extra time.
The ferry dropped us off right next to the expo which was convenient!

We changed at the hotel and then headed back to Congress Street for dinner. The place we had in mind ended up being more of a burger joint, so we had a drink and walked back to Fore Street where there was an Italian place. They were booked solid! Hmmmmmmm
We started to wander around and the hubs saw a BBQ place. As we walked towards the entrance we looked across the cobble stone street and saw a Creperie! The hubs had a dinner crepe and I had this mediterranean vegetable tart. It was divine! Eggplant, goat cheese, tart, fabulous! Afterwards, I had a Nutella and strawberry crepe to finish it off! After all those veggies, I deserved a crepe, right? Besides, there was fruit in there!

 

I ate every bite!

We strolled along the waterfront some more and found this great fence covered in Love Locks. We are totally bringing a lock with us the next time!

Whew! Exhausting! Both Friday and Saturday, I ended the day with over 16,000 steps. That is a lot of walking!

If you have never been to Maine, I definitely suggest Portland or Acadia. Both are great for an active vacation. Portland had ferries to so many different island and we only hit one of them, and one of the smaller ones, I think!

Side note for those who read my recap, the RD did apologize for his comments and is trying to do some damage control. It may be too late for many, but at least he is making an effort! I will not be going back, but I will look for other races in the area for next summer!

Have you ever been to Maine?