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The day was sunny, maybe in the low 60s, when we headed out for
breakfast at Becky’s Diner, located in front of an active fishing area. By the time we arrived there was about a 20
minute wait, which allowed me to walk down the dock. Oodles of lobster pots lined up against a
building with lobster boats in the water.
I was surprised at how small the boats are. One boat had two lobster traps in it and
there wasn’t much room for anything else.
Where do they store the lobsters they catch? Obviously there’s more to lobster fishing
than meets my eye.
There were 3 men out farther on the dock untangling a net. This wasn’t the first time they had to do
this because they were amazingly fast at it.
Stopped to watch and they were polite enough to talk to us while they
worked. The gill net they work with is
over 100 yards in length and they run 140 to 150 of them, checking the nets
about every 4 days. Catching monkfish is
their objective and one man said they aren’t getting rich doing it, just
managing to make a living. I don’t think
that’d be the job for me...I don’t like the smell of fish. Kim talked technical with them for a few
minutes and then we headed back to see if it was time to eat yet.
Breakfast
at Becky’s was more of a lunch for me since it was about 11:30 by the time we ordered. The BLT I ordered did not disappoint.
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Took a tour of the Victoria Mansion which is also known as the
Morse-Libby House. First a little
history about it: It was built in
1858-1860 as a summer home for New Orleans hotelier Ruggles Sylvester Morse and
his wife Olive, both of whom were Maine natives. They lived in the house until 1893 when
Ruggles died and Olive sold it, fully furnished, to J.R. Libby who owned a
large department store just blocks from the mansion. The Libby family (they had 5 children)
occupied the Mansion for over 30 years without making significant changes to
it. The last of the Libbys moved out in
1928 and the home was repossessed in 1939.
The house was abandoned and there were plans by an oil company to buy it
for demolition in order to build a gas station. However, it was bought for back
taxes by William Holmes who wanted to preserve it as a museum. In 1941 he opened it as the Victoria House,
named for Queen Victoria, and today it’s on the National Historic Register.
Now for the interesting details about the house: it was built with all
the latest technology of the day and featured gas lights, hot and cold running
water, flush toilets, central heat, wall-to-wall carpets and a servant call
system. There is also a Turkish smoking
room with an ornate sliding door and it’s believed
to be the first example of Islamic architecture in the United States. It’s also said to be the earliest smoking room
in a private home in America. Wonder what
they smoked behind those closed doors. 😉
 |
| Painted celing |
But I found the most incredible feature of the house to be the walls and
ceilings which were painted by Giuseppe Guidicini, an Italian opera set
designer. They were painted in the trompe l’oeil (fool the eye) style. At first glance it really did appear as though
the trim/moldings, chandelier medallions and picture frames were real and stood out from the wall. It was only upon close inspection that I could see that the surface was totally flat and not 3-D. True
artistry!! Although every room in the house was painted
in this manner it was the dining room ceiling that took it to a different
level. In the dining room, the walls are
actually real wood and what appears to be elaborately patterned wood inlay on
the ceiling is actually painted plaster!
I took pictures but don’t know that they really do justice to the man’s incredible talent. There was no information as to why the house
was painted in this manner or how long it took but it had to have cost dearly
to have it done. A guide at the Victorian House mentioned that even though he’s lived in Portland his whole life he still needs to use the cheat sheets on some historical details of the House. Aha! another Maine native....I reached into my purse, grabbed the notebook and showed him ‘the word’. He looked at it and then quickly pronounced it AND he pronounced all the syllables and didn’t put an ‘m’ in it. When I commented on the ‘m’ issue, he did say that there is a similar looking word that does have an ‘m’ in it...so maybe the others misread my word and were pronouncing the other one. Anyway, the breakdown of his pronunciation: Pass-a-gas-a-wah-keg. Say it fast and you’ve got it.👍
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Then we headed out to the Portland Head Light, a lighthouse on Cape
Elizabeth. Unfortunately there were no
tours but we did wander around the area for a bit. What I thought was graffiti on the rocks
actually turned out to be a memorial to the 1886 shipwreck of the Annie C.
Maguire.
Annie C. Maguire was a British three-masted barque sailing
from Buenos Aires, Argentina,
on 24 December 1886 when she struck the ledge at Portland Head Light, Cape Elizabeth, Maine. Lighthouse Keeper
Joshua Strout, his son, wife, and volunteers rigged an ordinary ladder as
a gangplank between
the shore and the ledge the ship was heeled against. Captain O'Neil,
the ship's master, his wife, two mates, and the nine-man crew clambered onto
the ledge and then, one by one, crossed the ladder to safety.
The cause of the wreck is puzzling
since visibility was not a problem. Members of the crew reported they
"plainly saw Portland Light before the disaster and are unable to account
for same."
The above is from Wikipedia. However, there is a longer more informational report of the shipwreck on
the New England Lighthouses blog at http://nelights.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-eve-at-portland-head-light.html
.
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Next up was a little shopping and then back to the house. No hot tub tonight because it started raining
and was predicted to last all night. So
we ordered pizza and then played cards. Now
it’s time for bed.
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No miles on the bikes today, but
I did get over 7,500 steps on my Fitbit. J
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