Great breakfast at Holland Inn.

Since the B&B has a limited seating for breakfast, guests select a time to eat – 7:30, 8:30, or 9:30.  We picked the 7:30 for each day, and this worked out perfectly.  We started the day with a great breakfast – coffee, juice, blueberry muffins, apple/yogurt/walnut fruit salad, and avocado and tomato quiche.  Evin (the innkeeper) has also hiked all over the island, and provided each guest with different ideas for hikes or other activities.

View from behind the Beehive.

After breakfast we quickly made our way over to the Beehive.  We were one of the first cars in the Sand Beach parking lot; this might have been due to the relatively early hour, or to the fog blanketing that side of the park.  Regardless, we had a fun hike to the top of the Beehive.  Louisa particularly enjoyed climbing up the iron ladders.    We had about 30 minutes at the top to just relax, before a father and a few boys disrupted our solitude.

There were many frogs along the shoreline of the Bowl.

Thanks to Evin, we chose to extend our hike down around the Bowl (i.e. a pristine mountain pond), and then up Mt. Gorham.  The pond was lovely, and Louisa appeared to be imitating the canopy methods of the reddish egret as she attempted to catch frogs.

Looking down at Thunder Hole.

The hike resumed up to the top of Mt. Gorham, and then down along the (by now very crowded) Ocean View Trail.  We did stop by Thunder Hole, saw/heard the water – and then continued, as quickly as we could, to get back to our car and try to find a less crowded area of the park.

Enjoying some lobster at the Pound.

Our idea of fewer crowds originally consisted of the Jordan Pond house.  While we realized this area would be insanely packed, we had no idea there would be a 2+ hour wait.  We changed plans, admired the trip arch bridge on our out of the park, and headed down to Bernard.  Lunch consisted of both hard and soft shell lobsters at Thurston’s lobster pound.  The pound sits over the water, and affords nice views of the harbor and lobster boats.  The lobsters themselves were delicious, perfectly cooked and served with drawn butter.  Since it was the end of the soft shell season, those lobsters had almost fully grown into their shells and were very similar to hard shell lobsters.  Although we were told the soft shelled ones were usually sweeter, both of us agreed that Tony’s hard shell lobster was a tad tastier.  We also learned that we prefer claw over tail meat.

View of the bay from Flying Mountain.

We snacked on chocolate chip cookies on our way over to the trail at Flying Mountain.  The hike to the top was short and quick, but the views were fantastic.  We admired the scenery for a few minutes, then wandered down the back side of the mountain (and wondered if we would have to climb back up).  However, we were able to follow the wide logging road back out.  This hike was quiet, with great views of water and fog in the distance.

View on the drive back to Bar Harbor.

Dinner was maybe the best dinner we had in Bar Harbor.  We made reservations at Café This Way (perhaps named for the”cafe this way –>” sign directing diners to the little building tucked away behind several others).  We  enjoyed some good food and drink (including mojitos, crab cakes with lime-tequila aioli, blackened swordfish with tomatillo salsa and peach/pineapple salsa, garlic mashed potatoes, Bailey’s crème brulee, and cashew chocolate chip cheesecake).