Ah, summer’s end. It is an eternal, bittersweet, ritual goodbye. There’s a slight chill in the air after dinner; children are headed back to school, and the world is getting ready for a reset. These are the final weeks to enjoy warm days, and breezy, open-window nights. Excellent sleeping weather. The last picnics and pool parties. The last ball games and fireworks displays. The last outdoor concerts and fireflies and bonfires and barbecues for a while. At least, if you live in New England. A late season vacation to Maine is the ideal way to conclude a glorious summer and welcome the transition into fall.
There are so many wonderful sights and sounds and tastes and feelings that you only get in coastal Maine between Labor Day and the final hours of sweet September. Make a point to plan for those long weekends, or, if you are lucky enough to be retired, for a midweek mini break with far fewer crowds and shorter lines for lobster rolls, which are especially perfect as the long days wane. The Craignair Inn by the Sea is ready to welcome you then. Wake up early and bird watch on easily accessible Clark Island. Sleep in and join us for breakfast in our ocean facing dining room and deck. The Maine wild blueberry pancakes with real maple syrup from a local sugar shack are practically perfect in the crisp September morning. All of Maine's seasons have magic and beauty, but this in between time in the month of September is near perfection.
Imagine a map of New England. Put your finger on the craggy coast of Maine. Follow the miles and miles of hidden harbors and clandestine cliffs to a point midway between Portland and Eastport. This is the MidCoast, perfectly balanced, and placed along the way. The MidCoast offers world class art museums, like the stately Farnsworth and the avant-garde Center for Maine Contemporary Art. Every July we welcome some of the best blues musicians currently playing for the North Atlantic Blues Festival. In September, documentary filmmakers from all over the world arrive in charming Camden, to screen their work in a festival growing in reputation and prestige, gaining on cities like Cannes, France, and Austin, Texas. The Camden International Film Festival (CIFF) boasts thought-provoking movies, art parties, creative, interesting, beautiful people, and most importantly ideas and views from the larger global scene. For one week a quaint small town feels cosmopolitan. We have Shakespeare in the Park, classical music concerts and jazz, dance companies, half a dozen bookshops in two small towns, artist receptions, and more. If you are looking for a vacation steeped in arts and ideas, want to meet and mingle with creative individuals, enjoy performance and playful productions, this is the place to stay.
Are you out for an adventure? Are you the outdoorsy type? Is your family into hiking, biking, and all things extreme and physical? If you are looking for an escape from so-called civilization and the increasingly insidious sphere of its influence, the MidCoast is a refuge. It has always been a place where urban and suburban denizens can escape from the world of getting and spending. Woods, fields, trails, meadows, mountains, beaches, and of course, the sea carries your mind far from human concerns. Commune with trees, listen to waves, connect with nature on every level. In September the crowds have considerably thinned. You can be utterly alone immersed in nature's beauty. Our top five ideas for exploring outside and touching grass in the backyard of The Craignair are: 1. glamping in Acadia. 2. floating in a quarry. 3. taking a lobster boat tour and learning to haul traps. 4. taking a sunset sail around Camden Harbor. 5. exploring the Clark Island trails by bike; bring your own or rent from Maine Sport Outfitters with locations in both Rockland and Rockport.
The St. George Peninsula is the heart of the heart of Maine. North of Portland there are countless interesting roadside attractions, from antique barns to blueberry fields. Once you've driven though historic Thomaston, and stopped for a beverage at Flipside Coffee and provisions for the good life at Flaura Flowers and Wine, follow winding Route 131, which begins at Montpelier, the Knox Mansion, drive past high tides and hayfields, wedding venues, cows, natural springs, and starry skies to Spruce Head. Spruce Head is a lobstering village, a community of working waterfronts, where people work tirelessly and lovingly at what they do, making a living from the unfeeling sea. Locals and tourists agree that this peninsula is a place that must be preserved; if you visit it once you will understand why it is special and rare. To paraphrase the great British novelist George Eliot, “we could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it.” Spruce Head will teach you to love the earth better and steward it well as you revert to a childlike state of wonder and delight in all its playgrounds. Your spirit will be lifted in this unique Maine location.
At The Craignair the emphasis is definitely on the natural world. Everywhere you look, there is green. As proof that the internet isn’t the entire reason for the duality of human existence, 500 years ago Shakespeare often set his plays in two places: a brown world of business, busyness, intrigue, and political concerns and the green world where couples lose one another, fall in love in new ways, get confused, fall victim to supernatural interference, are influences by wild nature, and ultimately are transformed into better versions of their highest self. The green world is the setting of the Craignair Inn. By the sea and the woods, near the rocks and fields and sand and salt air all of us are welcomed to sit more quietly, to ramble, to eat well, and dive deep into conversation with good drinks and wonderful company.
And speaking of eating well. If you are a foodie, if you are moved by sensational ingredients, and recall transcendent dining experience years later, The MidCoast is a must for your New England vacation bucket list. We've touched on lobster, which is essential, as well as the small wild blueberries that grow low to the ground in August. But have we mentioned oysters and the aquaculture scene growing in abundance in these parts? Oysters farms are thriving, and September might be the perfect time to tour these innovative and sustainable operations. The cold, clean and briny waters of Maine, where fresh water meets the sea, is the absolute best for these delicious bivalves. At The Causeway Restaurant we serve both Aphrodite Oysters and Ice House from this very peninsula. It does not get fresher or more local than that!
September is the month of summer's end. It is often filled with lasts and new nostalgia. Remember when we swam at dusk, and the corn was sweetest, and the music lasted late into the night? Make the Craignair Inn part of your annual September tradition, as the evenings cool and summer slips gently into autumn. We are a four-season inn in the heart of Maine, and as you start thinking about back to school shopping, routine, schedules, plans for home projects and renewed attention to interiors, also consider making a reservation at The Craignair Inn by the Sea in Spruce Head for chilly beginnings that require a sweater, for sitting a little closer to the fire, to ordering red instead of white, to planning cozy holidays and winter retreats. We’re here all year, for whenever you need a vacation. Book a room now for summer, fall, winter, or spring!