It all began when I was watching a few minutes of the Today Show before I left for work. They were discussing cheap vacations in the USA, they mentioned Portland Maine, they said hotels were reasonable and the food was as good as Boston. I mentioned Portland to my wife and she was interested. Her sister and their family live in Salem Massachusetts and we could fly into Boston and meet them in Portland.

We did just that, we flew into Boston on Wednesday and drove to Salem to have lunch with Tony, Lori, Kai and Robbie. We visited for a while and left for Portland about 5:00 PM. It was about an hour and a half to a two hour drive.

We checked into the Eastland Park Hotel. We actually tried to get closer to the the waterfront but it was Memorial Day weekend and as it turned out there was a Jehovah Witness convention in town. We always check Trip Advisor for reviews when booking hotels and we were a little worried because there were more negative views that I would have preferred but we got a good deal on the hotel we paid $129 for room, parking, breakfast and drinks. We read in the reviews that the top two floors had been remodeled so we requested a room on the twelveth floor. My wife booked the room and saw that the hotel had a sale ($129 per night), but it did not cover all of the nights that we stayed. She asked when we booked the room if the sale price could be applied to all of the nights and the agent said yes- ask and you shall receive.

The Eastland is an older hotel but I am sure at one time it was the nicest hotel in town. The entry to the hotel is similar to the Grand Hotel in Minneapolis, a lot of wood and a large entry area. Parking for the hotel is in the ramp located just past the main entrance. We checked in, unpacked and walked down to the waterfront to find a restaurant. We stumbled upon a Flatbread Pizza, Karen had eaten at a Flatbread Pizza in Massachusetts and liked it. Dinner was really good, we ordered a pizza and I had a pepperoni and kalamata olive. The pepperoni was the best and spiciest I have ever had. I am a pizza fanatic the pizza at Flatbread tops my list. We also had the brownie and ice cream sundae for dessert, again very good. The weather was cool  otherwise I am sure that their patio on the water would have been packed.

The following morning we used our breakfast coupon at the 157 Cafe located on the main floor of the hotel. The coupon covered the first $25 and since this is a restaurant located in a hotel, pancakes cost $9.00 but with the first $25 free breakfast cost less than $10 for both of us including tip. I am a pancake fanatic, my wife wonders how I can order pancakes almost every time we go out for breakfast, they are my favorites. I give these pancakes two thumbs up.

We were told by several people that the L.L. Bean stores in Freeport are a must-see, actually, Freeport is a must-see if you want to do a little shopping. There are plenty of stores for Karen and with L.L. Bean and North Face outlets there was something for me. There are several L.L. Bean stores in Freeport, they have a bike and kayak store, an outlet, and a huge L.L. bean retail store. The rest of Freeport is all shops and outlets, my favorite is the North Face store, we could have gotten a terrific deal on a six-person North Face tent for about $170, unbelievable! Unfortunately we did not want to carry it back on the plane. The clothing is also unbelievably cheap, I did stock up on some shirts. We could have spent the rest of the day in Freeport but we decided to head back to Portland for lunch.

We ate at Gilbert’s Chowder House, it is a Portland must according to Trip Advisor. The food is very good, it is not fancy and it appeared to be a local hangout. We were told that we had to try the lobster rolls when we went to Portland so I gave one a try at Gilbert’s. I had no idea what a lobster roll was, it is lobster meat in a toasted u-shaped piece of bread, very tasty.

Part of our hotel deal was free drinks so we went back to the hotel and went to the Top of the East Lounge. The walls are mostly glass to you get a spectacular view of the harbor. They happened to be shooting a commercial for the hotel while we were there so were are in the background sipping cocktails.

For dinner we ate at a local wine bar that we had walked by earlier in the day, it was listed as the best of Portland. The wine bar decor was interesting, it looked like the interior was designed by HGTV, it had black and white painted floors, one of the chairs was a giant shoe, you get the picture. We were a little disappointed in the food, we ordered what we thought were entrees,  they were appetizers sized.

We were awakened the following morning at 6:00 am by a fire alarm. This was a little disconcerting because we were on the 12th floor. We got dressed and I actually remembered to hold my hand to the door to make sure it was not hot before opening it, which it was not. We went down twelve floors of stairs. When we exited at street level we saw multiple firetrucks. We later found out that some vandal had pulled the fire alarm.

We took the harbor tour in the afternoon. It was well worth the money. The captain was very funny and informative. We got a close up look at several lighthouses and the fort that is located in the middle of the harbor. I highly recommend the trip if you are in Portland.

Once Karen’s family arrived we had to go back to Flatbread, also one of their favorite pizza places. We also had dinner at Di Millo’s, seafood is their specialty. We spent the last day at the beach, it was on the chilly side but bearable and the beach was beautiful, the kids really enjoyed it.

We headed back to Salem on Monday in the late morning, thinking that we would miss the traffic but we were wrong. It was bumper to bumper as soon as we got in the freeway in Portland. We had to fight intermittent stop and go traffic for about an hour but we eventually made it back.