After A Lucky Detour, we continued up Route 1 towards Northport, our original destination.

We had driven through Northport on Route 1 many, many times on the way to and from Ellsworth, Bar Harbor and points downeast. It always seems like, to use Gertrude Stein's words, "there's no there there".  You pass a sign announcing that you're entering Northport, and another for entering Lincolnville, but Northport has a colorful Mexican restaurant and nothing else, not even a wide spot in the road.

 So this time we decided to discover Northport. A very close-up on MapQuest showed a Shore Road that looked like just the thing. There is even a section called Temple Heights...there's a there there!

Shore Road was easily missed, but we turned back and followed it into something awesome.

 As expected, as soon as we came within sight of the shore from the south we encountered palace after palace, beautiful summer homes, gardens, and splendid views. Mount Percival forms a steep slope to the sea, so houses on the inland side get a view, too. They were not too tightly clustered, and many were well-obsucred by trees and shrubs, so it did not seem crowded.  

A little further north we came upon a trio of cute gingerbread cottages, and then another. Around a bend and we were surrounded by them! It was very like the cottage city in Oak Bluffs on Martha's Vineyard, though much smaller. This is Temple Heights, an active 130-year-old spiritualist community. Like Oak Bluffs it has its roots in late 19th-century religious summer camp meetings along the New England coast. All around are scores of cute, small gingerbread cottages, well-maintained and lovingly tended. What a surprising discovery!

As we used to say in Kodiak, it's beautiful but you can't eat the scenery. Neither of us is a big fan of Mexican food, so we pressed on to Belfast, where I hoped to find the legendary Marshall Wharf.

Belfast is a nice little city that is easily bypassed en route to the more glamorous Acadia National Park. Route 1 even forms a sort of beltway a la Route 128 around Boston to help you avoid poor Belfast. Explore Belfast; it's worth a visit, and it makes a great base of operations for exploring midcoast Maine.

Among our discoveries there was a great little cheese shop with the very unpretentious and direct name of Eat More Cheese. They were tucked away behind a jewelry shop that distracted Lorna, but I'm no magpie; It takes more than shiny baubles to distract me from cheese! There is also a good coop with local produce and other organic fare, plus a good selection of local ales and wines.

But we needed dinner, and I remembered that our good friends at the Beer Advocate hold them in very high regard (as does virtually everyone else in the craft beer biz).  

Where else can you enjoy fresh Pemaquid oysters with a sampler of five different, craft-brewed stouts by the same brewer? They had 17 of their own beers on draft, with a few available in growlers and none of them bottled (yet - cans coming soon). Marshall Wharf Brewery operates the adjacent 3 Tides restaurant, with an awesome stone bar, a selection of Maine artisanal spirits, and plenty of locavore fare.

So it's worth a visit to Northport and Belfast for many reasons, but oysters and stout at 3 Tides clinched the deal for me.