Bar Harbor

The coast here is granite, not sand, and the Gulf of Maine is cold even in August, usually around 13°C. Sand Beach inside Acadia National Park is a lovely cove of crushed shell between rock headlands, but most visitors paddle, gasp and get out again. The swimming that people actually enjoy is in freshwater: Echo Lake, on the quieter western side of the island, has a guarded beach and water that warms to the low 20s°C by midsummer, and Lake Wood is a smaller, quieter option. Beach life is a short summer pleasure on the side of a hiking vacation, not the reason to come.

Eating here centres on the sea. Lobster is boiled whole in big outdoor pots at waterfront shacks and eaten at picnic tables, piled into buttered rolls or cooked into chowder, and steamed clams, mussels and haddock fill out most menus. Wild Maine blueberries turn up in pies, pancakes and ice cream through late summer, and popovers with tea at Jordan Pond House, inside the national park, have been a tradition for well over a century.

A handful of more ambitious dining rooms and craft breweries sit alongside the fried-fish counters and ice cream parlours on Main Street. It is a small seasonal town, so the range is narrow, summer evenings mean queues, and many kitchens close between late autumn and spring.

The town's cultural interest is modest and specific. The Abbe Museum is devoted to the Wabanaki, the Native peoples of Maine, and is the best reason to spend a rainy morning indoors. Around it lies the history of the Gilded Age summer colony, when wealthy families built grand shingle-style cottages along the shore; many burned in the great fire of 1947, but the Shore Path still passes several surviving estates, and St Saviour's Episcopal Church has Tiffany windows. Inside the park, the hand-cut granite bridges of the carriage roads are handsome heritage in their own right. Two or three hours covers it; visitors come for the landscape.

Evenings are short. In summer a few pubs, taprooms and harbour-view bars around Main Street and Cottage Street stay busy with hikers and cruise passengers, and there is the odd band on a weekend, but there are no clubs and the town is quiet well before midnight. Many people are in bed early anyway to catch sunrise on Cadillac Mountain. Out of season, going out amounts to a drink with dinner.

Acadia National Park begins at the edge of town, and this is the whole point of Bar Harbor. Rounded pink-granite mountains rise straight from the sea, the highest being Cadillac Mountain at 466m, with trails ranging from gentle shore walks to iron-rung cliff climbs such as the Precipice and the Beehive. Somes Sound cuts deep into the island, Ocean Path follows the surf past Thunder Hole and Otter Cliff, and at low tide you can walk across a gravel bar to Bar Island.

Around 70km of car-free carriage roads make superb cycling and, in winter, cross-country skiing. Sea kayaking among the islands, whale and puffin cruises, tide pooling, and the quieter Schoodic Peninsula across Frenchman Bay add variety. Autumn colour is spectacular, summer is pleasant and crowded, and winter is cold and very quiet.

Most outings stay on or near Mount Desert Island. The working harbour villages of Northeast Harbor, Southwest Harbor and Bass Harbor are a short drive away, and small ferries run to the Cranberry Isles, where Islesford has a tiny historical museum. Further afield, the old shipbuilding town of Castine, the galleries of Blue Hill, the granite fishing village of Stonington on Deer Isle and the schooner harbour of Camden are each within about an hour and a half to two hours by car. It is a pleasant string of New England coastal towns, but none of them is a major sight, and a car is essential to reach them.

This is an outdoor family vacation rather than an attractions one. Children take to the tide pools along the shore, the walk across the sandbar to Bar Island, the flat carriage roads on bikes and the junior ranger activities in Acadia, and whale-watching boats leave from the town pier. The town itself is small, safe and easy, with ice cream and fudge on every corner. What it lacks is anything built for children on a wet day: there are no theme parks or large museums, the sea is too cold for real beach play, and the cliff trails are not for small legs.

Downtown Bar Harbor is compact and pleasant on foot, with the harbour, Main Street, the Village Green and the Shore Path all within a few minutes of each other. In the main season the free Island Explorer buses link the town with the trailheads, Sand Beach, Jordan Pond and the villages around the island, and many people manage a whole stay without driving. Outside that season there is effectively no public transport, so a car is needed for the park and anything beyond. In summer the Park Loop Road and the Cadillac summit road get congested, and parking at popular trailheads fills early.

Shopping is a summer stroll along Main Street and Cottage Street: moose and lobster souvenirs, fleece and outdoor gear, fudge, blueberry jam and balsam pillows. A few galleries sell local paintings, pottery and jewellery, and Maine crafts such as wooden bowls and knitwear are the most worthwhile finds. There is no fashion, no department store and nothing to plan a trip around, and many shops close for the winter.

Bar Harbor is an expensive place to stay in summer and early autumn. Rooms are limited for the number of visitors, so even plain motels charge resort rates in July, August and the leaf season, and lobster dinners, whale-watching cruises and the national park entry fee add up. Hiking, cycling the carriage roads and the free park shuttle cost little once you are here, and campgrounds on the island are the main way to keep a stay cheap. Prices fall sharply in late autumn and spring, but so does the choice of places to eat and sleep.

Live performance is a summer affair. Several small classical and chamber-music festivals hold concerts in churches and halls around Mount Desert Island in July and August, and the Criterion Theatre, an art deco cinema from 1932 on Cottage Street, hosts films, concerts and touring acts. Beyond that there are bands in pubs and the occasional outdoor concert on the Village Green. Out of season there is very little to attend.

There is no bathing or spa tradition here: wellness means a massage at one of the larger hotels or inns and a quiet porch looking over Frenchman Bay. What the place does offer is calm, especially in June and after the autumn colour fades, when the town empties, the harbour is still and the days follow the tides. In high summer the streets fill with cruise passengers and traffic, and the restful moments have to be found away from Main Street.