Kayaking to Fort Gorges

We started the day with a quite nice brunch at UNION, a quite nice restaurant at The Press Hotel. This hotel, which at least from what we saw looked very cute and fancy, is located in what once was the Gannett Building, the historic headquarters of the Portland Press Herald—the state’s largest newspaper. It's now decorated with a cool old-newspaper style and I would love to stay there sometime. I think it's very expensive though.

We had booked a kayak trip to Fort Gorges with Portland Paddle (book in advance if you want to do this!) and after checking out we headed to the beach to meet the group.

Fort Gorges is a former US military fort built on Hog Island Ledge in Casco Bay, Maine. The construction started in 1858, but by the time it was finished, the fort had become obsolete due to the advancing military technology. As a result, no troops were ever stationed there. The fort is now a park only accessible by boat and in 1973 it was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

The thing is cool and interesting to visit and the kayak trip was very nice, but the fort is falling apart and I would not be surprised if those visits get restricted soon to prevent accidents. Portland Paddle organizes trips to other places, including kayak-camping trips to Jewell Island, which sound quite fun.

We were quite tired after the kayak trip so we decided to have an early dinner in Portland before heading back. We ended up in Fore Street restaurant following the positive reviews, and it definitely didn't disappoint. It's located right on top of the bakery that we had visited the previous morning and everything was delicious, including the bread that they got from downstairs.Read more