Bar Harbor, Maine
Bar Harbor started off as a simple and exclusive resort and summer home for the Venderbilts and the Astors. That was until it was destroyed by a fire in October on 1947. It was then rebuilt bigger and better and became a place for tourists.
The ambience is enough to make you feel as if you belong. In high season up to 21 different sea trips set off each day, ranging from deep-sea fishing to cocktail cruises. Among the most popular are the Friendship V and Acadian whale-watching expeditions, departing from Harbor Place, next to the Town Pier and the two-hour cruises on the impressive two-masted schooners Young America and Margaret Todd from the Bar Harbor Inn.
The only signs of the island’s first inhabitants are the artifacts at the Robert Abbe Museum, which were found at Fernald Point near Southwest Harbor and attributed to a nomadic people who made birch-bark canoes. What became of them is summed up by a classic understatement on a map contrasting the tribal areas of 1600 with the modern reservations: “The native population did not view territorial boundaries as we do today.”