The Lighthouse!

A grey Sunday morning and having gone to the Fitness Room at 6:00am, only to find it opened at 7:00am, the day didn't get off to the best start! Nevertheless, we managed an early start for Downtown and parked in a lot on Commercial Street. We took the prepaid $10 per day option, discovering later that we could have parked on the street for nothing!

The quayside is still a working fishing dock and it shows. It has character, but the eating places sadly lack atmosphere and basic refinement.

Starbucks lived up to expectations, however, despite the presence of an odd dude on the next table who constantly leafed through a book of divinity at great speed and talked rapidly into his mobile, simultaneously .... obviously on the dark roast with an extra shot or two! Leaving Starbucks, we headed for the trolley tour bus and were fortunate enough not to get tickets ...... the tour was heavily booked, so we decided to walk and drive ourselves around the tourist route; a wise decision, as the tickets were $28 each and the route far form extensive! So we walked down the pier front, encountering a recently docked cruise ship and its discharge of over-dressed cargo, then headed for the town's historic streets.

We found ourselves back at the car park and decided to drive to the much acclaimed Portland Head Lighthouse in Fort Williams Park, a short distance away. Arriving there the heavens opened and we took some time out to watch, as some unfortunate group's picnic was drenched. When the weather cleared we continued our drive to the Lighthouse, a marvellous and well photographed view and accompanied by a stark reminder of its primary purpose!

In the afternoon, we sought out a cinema and saw the 'Scully', before heading back to the hotel, where we had dinner. What can I say? The surf and turf was both good and very reasonably priced ..... but the atmosphere in the hotel restaurant was less than buzzing! (But I'd eat there again!!). The cinema seating arrangements were pretty cool, too!!

As a musical tribute for today, I'm again borrowing from something I heard on Sirius XM earlier today. I've used it before, but Johnny Rivers 'Sea Cruise' seem oddly apt!