After the sightseeing and hiking, here are some of our favorite places to relax while in the Mt Desert Island (MDI) area. Sometimes we need to take a small vacation from this frantic retirement schedule. 🙂
The small village of Southwest Harbor, the even smaller Somesville, and the local Atlantic Brewery all fit the bill for a little low key relaxing and they are all within a few minutes of base camp.
Southwest Harbor
Located on the Mt Desert Island quiet side, it has become one of our favorite relaxing locations. There are several small restaurants, coffee shops, galleries and other shops to browse.
At just 1,700 people and 13 square miles of land, it has one notable feature. The 1999 Stephen King mini-series “Storm of the Century” was filmed on location here. Not sure if I will read that book as his are a little out there for me.
We ate lunch at the Eat-a-Pita Cafe and the food was good, but slow service. We also visited the Milagro coffee shop once and another small one in town that I forget the name. We really enjoy a good coffee shop after lunch.
They have a good old fashioned, smaller hardware store on main street called McEachern & Hutchins. Always fun for a walk through.
Somesville Maine
The tiny village of Somesville has a small museum, library, and a very scenic path up to the old cemetery. The museum keeper told us about the path.
The entire village is a historic district and was first settled by Europeans in 1760, an Abraham Somes. The Massachusetts governor asked him to settle here and establish mills. An 1828 family house still stands today.
Atlantic Brewing
They have three tours in the early afternoon and we got into the tour at 3pm. A very small brewery and a very tall tour guide at 6’9.” He was quite good at explaining the history and operations.
The brewery started in 1990 and now only produce about 55,000 cases of beer per year. That is quite small for a brewery that started about the same time as Sam Adams brewery that brews 6 million barrels a year. The reason that Atlantic did not expand is because they buy only local ingredients and have captured all of the local grains that are grown.
The owner prefers the small batch quality to a larger volume production type of business. Based on the large crowds for their in house BBQ, they must have a good business. At least in the summertime with many visitors in town.
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Take care and God Bless.
Great Pics as usual. The Drydock Café/Inn looks like a neat place. I have to make a trip to Maine sometime!
Thanks Rick. We have found some real gems getting away from the crowded areas.