If you want to read about my visit to Mid Coast Maine click here, Acadia National Park click here and Rockland click here.

The subtitle to this post should be “a love letter to a city I’m sorry I passed so many times before.”  The first time I visited Maine a few years ago I stayed in Kennebunkport due to a deal I found online.  Since then I’ve either stayed in Kennebunkport again or in York where I’ve found a couple hotels I enjoy.  However, Jill loves Ogunquit and since I had not been to the city before (I always passed it by in my meanderings since there is no lighthouse there) I decided to try something new and we booked our last two nights in Maine there at The Sparhawk Oceanfront Resort.  We chose it since it had an ocean view and was right at the beginning of the Marginal Way.

When we arrived at The Sparhawk and to our room overlooking the ocean, the weather was still temperamental.  While it wasn’t raining it was coming BUT it was warm.  We dropped off our luggage and headed out towards the marginal way but not before I stopped to capture an image of the rainbow over the ocean.

While the rain held off we wandered down the path and I checked out the various little beaches and benches along the way.  There’s even a small man made lighthouse!  The homes and hotels along the path are also beautiful!  I would have spent more time taking in the scenes but the skies were growing darker so I knew we didn’t have much time to dawdle.  Since I knew rain was coming I didn’t bring along my camera and decided to just take along my phone.

We followed the Marginal Way until the end which is in Perkins Cove.  If I didn’t know any better I would swear this was something that Disney made up because it is straight out of a book or movie.  It’s this adorable little cove with a charming bridge over an inlet.  There are lobster boats at the end of the cove and a spot near the bridge where they bring in the catch.  The current was flowing just right so all the boats were pointed towards the bridge where I climbed up to take a photo (and regretted not bringing my D4 along!).  There are shops and restaurants in the circle and it’s just.so.quaint.  I could have stayed there forever but the rain was coming and we still had to walk the mile and a half back to our hotel.   The skies opened up about a half mile away from our hotel so we almost made it back but this stop was worth it for this image alone.

Once back and dried off we headed down to That Place for dinner after checking the reviews and menus of the places nearby.  Since it was Ogunquitfest everything was still open in town which was a welcome change from the other areas we’d been in.  Dinner was good but what was most charming of all was the people.  We were seated next to a few locals and both Jill and I kept saying how we hoped we were like them when we grow up.  They were a bit older and all 4 of them were laughing it up and enjoying their cocktails.  Everyone around them was smiling as their joy was infectious.  Every local I ran into during our stay there was the same way – just full of love and happiness.

After dinner we did some walking around and enjoying the displays that the local businesses had up for the contest (those will all be coming under a separate post because I took a lot).  The skies cleared up and I drug my tripod out again onto our balcony in hopes of capturing at least one meteor.  I got luckier this time around and captured a few!  The sodium light at the hotel on the beach wasn’t the best but you take what you can get 🙂

The next morning I woke up in time for another cloudy sunrise but it was still beautiful between the clouds!

The next day we went to the beach for some pictures and around town so we could see more of the displays before heading out to Nubble Lighthouse to kill some time before meeting up with Gianina’s family for their portrait session.   I saw these chairs near Perkins Cove and wished I had the time to sit and enjoy the peace there for a while.

We went back down to Perkins Cove and I went back up to the bridge with my camera and took some more images of the boats.  I may have also done some shopping at my favorite local jewelry store that happens to have a store in Perkins Cove, Sea Glass Jewelry Studio.

It was a perfect day at Nubble with little wind and bright blue skies.  I climbed around on the rocks and eventually found my spot in front of a tidal pool on the rocks that made a great surface for reflections.

We headed out to Mount Agamenticus and I was able to wander around and get a feel of the location before the session began and took some pictures of the various overlooks from the summit.  It was beautiful seeing all of the foliage around!

We ended up back in Ogunquit for sunset which wasn’t, again, much of a show but I did enjoy the low light over the beach in front of our resort and the kiddos playing that wanted to capture every second of light before going in.  It was the first official night of Ogunquit Fest and everyone was out on the town.

Once the sun set we headed out for dinner, eventually deciding on La Pizzeria after picking up some delicious desserts from Bread & Roses Bakery across the street (they would have been closed by the time we left so we decided to get it before dinner, because dessert is important on vacation!).  La Pizzeria was SO good, I hope to return on my next visit to Maine.

After dinner we walked off our meals and desserts by checking out all of the ornately carved pumpkins that were set up along the road for Ogunquitfest.  I’m going to make a whole blog about this in the next installment because it was just that awesome but here’s a teaser until that post.

I absolutely and completely fell in love with Ogunquit and can’t wait to visit again soon!