Issues → September/October 2009 → Travel →
What is There to See In New England?
(page 3 of 10)
Loons call across the lakes at night, from the piney shores of Newfound Lake to broad Lake Winnipesaukee. This body of water is as big as its name, with the razzmatazz summer fun of Weirs Beach on one end and the gracious restraint of Wolfeboro on the other. When winter grips the waters, dog sleds and snowmobiles replace canoes and speedboats. Life is to be lived, or as the state motto says, "Live free or die."
New Hampshire has more fresh water than salt, but the seacoast, while short, is decidedly sweet. The marsh-backed sandy shores of Hampton Beach edge into the stony cliffs and pocket beaches of Rye en route to Portsmouth.
When this port town at the mouth of the Piscataqua was young, sailors called it Strawbery Banke for the profusion of fruit on its shores. The nickname sticks to this day to a fine museum that shows how people lived here over the last three centuries. That's not to say that Strawbery Banke ignores the 21st century -- its Dunaway Restaurant quickly made a name for itself in Portsmouth's already competitive dining scene.
Fine farmhouse fare makes up the spread at the Shaker Table in Canterbury Shaker Village, one of two New Hampshire communities of this mystic sect. The other sprawls in Enfield, almost within hailing distance of the Connecticut River, the handsome Dartmouth College campus in Hanover, and the Saint-Gaudens National Historic Site in Cornish, where yet another Granite State art colony flourished.
With astonishing mountain vistas, rolling pastures, and primal northern forests, New Hampshire is a state of grandeur. But grandeur doesn't preclude intimacy. Waitresses at the breakfast cafes always seem to call you "hon," the aroma of warm cookies wafts from little B&Bs in the afternoons, and you'll surely get an earful of local gossip at the village church's Saturday night bean supper.
Maine: The Pine Tree State
By David Lyon and Patricia Harris
Maine has more. Whatever you're looking for in New England, Maine has more coastline, more moose, more lobsters, more forest, more islands, more deer, more trout, more lakes and streams. Nearly as large as the rest of New England put together, Maine is so big by regional standards that mapmakers have to change their scale to fit the northern and eastern tips onto a page. Even the best navigators en route to Calais or Madawaska are likely to ask, "Are we there yet?"
Who cares? Getting there is half the fun.
Maine's southern coast is its sandiest, with long swimming strands in otherwise art-obsessed Ogunquit and delightfully honky-tonk Old Orchard Beach. North of Portland, rocky headlands far outnumber bathing beaches, and long peninsulas dangle off the coast like bunches of grapes. Follow a twisting turnoff to its logical conclusion, and you're almost certain to find a lobster pound and a lighthouse. If it's the Georgetown peninsula, you'll discover one of the longest and least crowded swimming beaches on the coast at Reid State Park and arguably the state's most picturesque lobster landing at Five Islands.
Reader Comments
Comment from Peter Rukavina on December 6, 2011
My favourite drive is the one from Montreal down the spine of Vermont into southern New Hampshire.
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