A fort, gelato, and a lighthouse: A perfect Maine day trip

We spent Memorial Day Weekend camping in our van, a 2002 VW Eurovan Weekender, at Hermit Island Campground in Phippsburg, Maine (ff you haven’t yet been, GO!), an absolutely gorgeous site that feels worlds away. Needless to say, Hermit Island made for a fantastic first van-camping trip—and certainly set the bar high!

Now I know some folks like to go away for days or a week or two at a time and hunker down and relax. We are not those folks. We tend to view where we’re spending the night as just that: a place to sleep. We’re like that with hotels, and we were like that on this camping weekend. And having just the van meant that once we pulled the pop-top down and folded the “downstairs” bed back to the bench seat, we were good to go. And off we went.

There’s a lot to do in mid-coast Maine, and we barely scratched the surface. We did, however, manage to each eat a lobster roll for each of the three days. Priorities.

After enjoying a light breakfast at our campsite (a heavenly concoction of Trader Joe’s Valencia creamy salted peanut butter and Stonewall Kitchen’s Wild Maine Blueberry Jam spread on Wild Blueberry Granola w/8 Grains bread by When Pigs Fly bakery), we decided to visit Fort Popham State Historic Site, located just eight miles from HIC.

Fort Popham was built in the early 1860s to protect the nearby shipyards during the Civil War but never saw battle. he Fort Popham State Historic Site was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1969.

I’ve been to a few cool forts—Castillo San Felipe del Morro and Castillo San Cristóbal in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico; Fort Mackinac on Mackinac Island, Michigan; Fort Point in San Francisco. There’s something about forts that I love. Maybe it’s the history, maybe it’s the architecture. Maybe it’s a combination of both. And I’m a sucker for those arches.

After our brief stop at Fort Popham, we headed toward Bath, site of those famous ship yards and took a side trip eight miles west to the town of Brunswick, where we enjoyed perhaps the best gelato I’ve had this side of Rome. Yes, it’s that good. G is a lover of ice cream/gelato/frozen yogurt; unfortunately, I can’t indulge in rich dairy (unless I’ve packed Lactaid!), so my options are usually pretty limited—and often less than flavorful. Not at Gelato Fiasco, however! I had a treat-size mixture of strawberry balsamic and rumchata, a rum-infused take on traditional Mexican horchata. YUM. G couldn’t decide among the MANY flavors and eventually opted for a mixture of Doughing Me, Doughing You; Brownie Batter; Netflix and Chill; and Stracciatella (for descriptions of those—and to see all of the daily flavors—check out this page).

While we had originally planned a visit to Boothbay for the day, we decided to skip over to visit Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park instead. I love lighthouses—perched on dramatic coastline, symbols of a romantic isolation, beckoning and guiding ships to safe harbor. Living in New England and on the New Hampshire seacoast so close to Maine, we’re spoiled by a landscape dotted with so many iconic lights—Cape Neddick “Nubble,” Portland Headlight—and, further north, Rockland Light, Marshall Point, Bass Harbor, and West Quoddy. Yet, we had never visited Pemaquid Point, the lighthouse that graces the Maine state U.S. quarter.

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse was commissioned in 1827 by John Quincy Adams. Approaching the light from the parking lot (entrance fee to the park: $3/person—well worth it!), it looks a lot like a lot of other lighthouses.

it’s not until you walk around to the back of Pemaquid that you take in the scene in all its Maine coast glory. Those rocks. That surf. The light. I can only imagine how dramatic a scene against a fiery sunset or sunrise or stormy skies. Even on this day, the sight was impressive.

The day we were there, all of the properties in the park were open—the lighthouse, the art gallery, the Fishermen’s Museum in the keeper’s house. We only visited the lighthouse itself, and we were thrilled to climb the narrow winding staircase of 35+ steps up to the top and into the lantern room, where we could see the fourth order Fresnel lens up close—it’s one of only six remaining Fresnel lenses still in service in Maine. For a great history of the light, check out this page. While every lighthouse I’ve ever visited has its own special quality, Pemaquid Point, with its weather-beaten rocks, deserves its place right up there on my list. Now, to return for photographs when the light is juuuuust right…

If you go…

Fort Popham State Historic Site: 10 Perkins Farm Land, Phippsburg, ME 04562
https://www.maine.gov/cgi-bin/online/doc/parksearch/details.pl?park_id=40

Gelato Fiasco: Locations in Brunswick and Portland, Maine: https://www.gelatofiasco.com
Brunswick: 74 Maine Street, Brunswick, Maine
Portland: 425 Fore Street, Portland, Maine

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse Park: 3115 Bristol Road New Harbor, ME 04664; https://www.bristolmaine.org/parks-recreation/pemaquid-point-lighthouse-park