Portland Cruise Port Guide

quickly prospered through shipbuilding and the export of inland pines which made excellent masts. A long line of wooden wharves stretched along the sea front, with the merchants' houses on the hillside above. from the earliest days it was a cosmopolitan city. When the railroads came, the Canada Trunk Line had its terminal right on Portland's quayside, bringing the produce of Canada and the Great Plains one hundred miles closer to Europe than it would at any other major US port. Some of the wharves are now taken up by new condo developments, with the exception of Customs House Wharf which remains much as it used to be.

Grand Trunk Station was torn down in 1966 and a revitalization program of this historic section was spearheaded by a group of committed residents. The result was the revival of the Old Port Exchange District with its red-brick streets built in the 1860s following a disastrous fire. The area today features a wide variety of restaurants, specialty and antique shops and makes for a pleasant place to go strolling. Congress Street and its many side streets are an engaging mixture of culture, commerce and history. Art is everywhere, from the Portland Museum of Art to the many statues and monuments throughout the city. Other points of interest include the Portland Observatory, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's childhood home, several colonial mansions and Fort Williams Park, with the adjacent Portland Head Light. Further afar one can visit the charming yachting and

fishing village of Kennebunkport, also noted as the locale of the home and former summer White House of ex-President George Bush.

Other attractions include the factory outlets of Freeport. About a 45 minute drive north of Portland, this shopping mecca is crammed with serious shoppers who come from as far away as New York.