Day 10 - Portland to Portsmouth

We started a wee bit later today cos poor K wasnt feeling so good last night and didnt sleep a lot. We still headed out at about 10 so it wasnt crazy late or anything.

Our first stop the Palace Diner in the town of Biddeford just west of Portland. It is a traditional old dining car style diner that only has 15 seats at the counter, properly tiny. However, as opposed to similar diners we've visited this one is owned by 2 young guys and the menu is more pared back.

K had the eggs, potatoes and toast and I had the breakfast sandwich (english muffin with bacon, scrambled egg, cheddar, jalapenos and mayo) with the breakfast potatoes. The potatoes were an actual dream (see photo), if i lived near there I'd be fricking delighted. My sandwich was great too, you could tell it was good quality ingredients.

We left Biddeford stuffed and happy, if you are ever in that next of the woods check it out - probably one of my best meals of the holiday. We didnt have much ground to cover today so we were taking the slow scenic routes. We were headed on the coastal road when we had to stop as a gang of wild turkeys decided to cross the road! Amazing!

Our first stop was Kennebunkport, a tiny wee town on the water with loads of independent shops and restaurants. Unfortunately, about 4 tour buses arrived at the same time as us so it was mobbed. It was like being in Kirkwall when the cruiseliner comes in. We pottered about for an hour or so and bought a few things before hitting the road again.

Our next stop was the Maine Diner, we were still full from breakfast but it was somewhere we really wanted to go so we decided to go for some pie. I had blueberry pie and K had a whoopie pie, the waitress said "so you're doing that instead of dinner, that's what I'd do too". The pie was delicious, blueberries are a big deal in Maine so it was good to get some.

All along the road were giant houses with huge yards, it was all very fancy. Our next destination was Ogunquit which is a tiny wee town with massive houses but weirdly there were gay flags outside lots of the bars and restaurants so I surmised it was a gay resort town (i already knew it was famous for its theatre), a quick google confirmed this to be the case - an alternative to provicetown apparently.

We drove down to Perkin's Cove which has a famous drawbridge and is a lobster port (as most of the coast is really). It had a lot of cute wee shops but we really need to stop buying stuff so we didnt go in to any.

We followed the coastal road on for a bit enjoying the fancy pants houses and the sea until we got to Nubble Lighthouse. We really felt that we should make an effort to see a lighthouse since Maine is known for them and we clearly picked a good one as it had a massive (busy) parking lot and a gift shop. The lighthouse was very pretty but our favourite thing was that it had a basket on a pulley system to get supplies across.

We left Maine behind as we arrived in Portsmouth (New Hampshire), our destination for tonight. We checked into the hotel then went a wee drive round the downtown. It was lovely and if we had had more time we'd have explored more. However, we weren't really in the mood for a city centre and a fancy restaurant tonight. We decided to go to the cinema and then some American chain restaurants that we dont have at home afterwards.  The cinema was surrounded by lots of big shops including a giant Barnes and Noble and Trader Joe's so we visited them pre-flicks.

We got tickets for Judy then hit up the concession stand where I discovered they had cheese popcorn mixed with crunchy cheetos, I couldn't have ordered it quicker tbh! After the film I discovered the downside to this as my fingers were bright orange. It was a pretty cool cinema with giant, fully reclinable, seats. The film was good too, I'd def recommend it.

We came out of the cinema to discover it was pouring, like properly Scottish pouring. We couldn't really be bothered going to a proper restaurant so we just decided to get take-out from Panera Bread and bring it back to the hotel.  I got a combo with a small soup (baked potato) and a half sandwich (roast beef and white cheddar) and K just got chicken noodle soup.

We were delighted to get back to the hotel away from the rain and the soup really hit the spot once we were dry.

Tomorrow we head back into Massachusetts and visit Salem!