Portland’s fishing wharves along the Fore River are great places to take pictures.
This was of the wharf behind Becky’s Diner.
Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens are fantastic! We’ve been two or three times in the past year. And I am not really interested in taking pictures of plants.
I don’t know what these plants are. We have them in the yard here too, and the neighbor and I used to cut them down to get to the grass they were growing out of, but when we realized how fantastic looking they were we gave up on the grass and let them grow.
We have a lot of Japanese Barberry in the yard, so I can’t say whether this is not an invasive plant species. I like Japanese Barberry too!
An older picture of the painted bus we saw walking back from dinner.
We’ve been to Montreal enough we stay at a regular place, the excellent Auberge de La Fontaine, and we have what I’d guess you’d call a routine (yeah, routine, boring) after the six hour drive to the city from Portland:
We change, freshen up, whatever you want to call it; the Auberge is in The Plateau neighborhood, and it’s across Rue Rachel from Parc La Fontaine, so we stretch our legs, clear our heads and start to relax with a walk though the park or through the neighborhood; and we get something to eat.
This picture was taken on the walk back through The Plateau’s grid (streets) after eating at Pizzedelic on Avenue du Mont-Royal.
This is an older picture from when we went to Montreal in the summer (of all things! we’ve normally visited in the winter or in the often wet fall), and we biked around the city.
The city’s infrastructure for bicycling and bicyclists is excellent! Bike lanes follow major commuting roads on the city grid, but for safety reasons, and for traffic (bikes are, um, slower than automobiles) the bike lanes are physically separated from that part of the road used by cars. Other urban areas, Portland included, should really follow Montreal’s example!
Velo Quebec has a lot of great information on bicycling in the area.
This picture was taken after we’d biked up from the Auberge de La Fontaine, where we were staying, to Jardin botanique de Montreal. It was hot that day, but not too humid, and the sky and the light were amazing.
The railroad trestle over the Presumpscot River’s no longer used for rail traffic, but it was modified at some point with a grim looking (my opinion) pedestrian walk way.
The railroad trestle over the Presumpscot River in Westbrook, Maine.
The next day’s photo shows the pedestrian walk way added to the railroad trestle. This woman, the two kids, and the photographer were not risking their lives walking on the old rail part of the bridge.
I’m always anxious, probably more than I need to be, about taking pictures of people.
Should I tell them they’re going to be in my picture? If I tell them before I take the picture I’m certain that’ll always make the picture I want impossible. Do I tell them afterwards and risk their being upset or, even worse, asking for the film?
Portland plans to fix this bridge in Deering Oaks Park in the Parkside neighborhood downtown. They should!
Deering Oaks Park is a significant city landmark: It was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, better known for Central Park (NYC) and Franklin Park in Jamaica Plain in Boston.
River Trolley Park was an urban park on the banks of the Presumpscot River open at the beginning of the 20th Century. There was a casino and an open air theater. A streetcar ran from Portland’s downtown up Forest Avenue to the park.
There are detailed stories, and timelines, of Riverton Trolley Park here, here and here. Some of these links have pictures showing how the park used to look.
Portland Trails has made walking trails on the site of the ruins on both sides of the Presumpscot River.
