Re-visiting Portland, Maine 2019/Carlos Pueblo

Re-visiting Portland, Maine 2019/Carlos Pueblo

Portland, Maine is not on the border to the State of New Hampshire where Portsmouth is. One year in the fall, I drove a car from Boston to Portsmouth to visit the site of a peace treaty between Russia and Japan in Manchuria in 1904-1905. The meeting was held at a naval base on the border of Maine and New Hampshire recorded as at Portsmouth and one site became a museum at the downtown Portsmouth where I visited. All three Emperors and Empress sent gifts to Theodore Roosevelt for his effort to broker the truce. I also have visited a museum on a National Park site on the Oyster Bay, his old residence. I love history and visiting historical places helps me to enlarge my interest. Portland is on the northeast corner of Portsmouth. There is another Portland on the west coast of Oregon State, much larger than the eastern one yet about the same latitude, another lovely city. I have been here twice before all by cruise and two more after I finish this back to back between New York City and Quebec City.

Depending on where the cruise moors, there is an easy access from the pier to the Main Street, one toward the old downtown full of piers with fish warehouses and other business stores and restaurants, etc., another direction is to a newer development of the area and highways toward other famous parts of Maine such as Kennebunk Port as described in recent history. I chose the old downtown route to visit a beautiful garden lobster restaurant, not for eating yet for the price on the manual. On the back door of the restaurant across a small alley, there is a fish market which is my old acquaintance. I also checked on prices of the local harvest. A pair of 1.25 pounds lobsters with a small boiled corn and another small boiled potato for a meal is $25 plus tax and service charge. You can order a smaller portion on a street food stand for less cost; however, that meal is still a better deal. The best deal is for the local to purchase bulk of lobsters while is at the season and freeze them for the entire year. I was told that you could get as low as $3 a pound while we pay about $12 a pound in Houston, Texas.

I didn't eat the lobster and went up to visit another part of the city following the nicely divided streets, one by one and up hill to the city hall. It is a very nice 19th century brick building all over and very well kept. Inside the city hall, it is very neat, clean, and well managed in deed. I can see all the photos of previous mayors. It was settled in 1632 and incorporated in 1786. Outside of the city hall, I visited a Catholic Church of its soup kitchen and pantry to help the needed and I also visited an old city park named Lincoln Park.

A small dahlia garden was blooming with red flowers. I took many shots for my memory.