Mount Washington Resort, Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, June 2007
From New York, a 45 minute flight gets you to Manchester, New Hampshire and then it’s a 2 hour drive north. By the way, if you rent a car from Hertz, they won’t help you install a child car safety seat. For us that’s a fatal problem since we don’t use cars often and don’t know how to do it ourselves. We stayed in the Robert Morganthou suite; he was the US secretary of treasury in 1944 and organized the Bretton Woods conference at which the IMF and World Bank were founded. It is a grande dame hotel in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. The area is lovely and the views from the hotel’s huge wraparound veranda are striking for America. The dining room features nightly orchestra with dancing. The best food is to be found down the hill at the Bretton Woods Inn, particularly with breakfasts made to order. We were there before the season got underway and we didn’t see the hotel at its full potential. Under new ownership, many extensive renovations are underway. It is a full-service resort. We enjoyed a horse carriage ride and many walks along the water streams and forests. There are beautiful state parks nearby and we went on a family attraction called Clark’s Trading Post which features a daily bear show and a train ride through the woods. We weren’t took lucky with the weather and had to be satisfied that it didn’t rain much but we knew we were in for it when we booked for the first week in June. On the other hand, the hotel was empty and we were treated very special. Because of its especially WASPY nature, they put meat into just everything you can think of; best thing to do if you want vegetarian food here is to speak to the maitre’d and have them fix up stuff for you special. We stayed in a suite which allowed for a refrigerator in our room, otherwise they don’t have them. Internet is a problem here if you don’t have a laptop in your room with 1 really slow work station in the lower lobby. Hotel is a work in progress and we weren’t thrilled with it but it was perfectly adequate and I’m sure about to get better.

Bar Harbor Maine June 2007
From Bretton Woods, it’s a 5 hour scenic drive to Bar Harbor Maine, on the farthermost east coast of the US which lays claim to the first glimpse of sunrise. It was also an excellent place to go to with a small child and to have a relaxing few days in a cooler area of the northeast without having to go to Canada to cool off in the summer. Our hotel of choice was the Bluenose Inn, about a mile outside of the center of town. The center of Town can be walked across in 3 minutes with only 4,500 residents year round. The Bluenose is an upper tier 4 star hotel with a great piano bar at night in the lobby, nice views of the bay and we stayed in a 2 bedroom suite downstairs. You give up the view but it’s a great apartment with a wraparound terrace and a full kitchen. The Rose Garden Restaurant is excellent and provided one of the best meals we had on our entire trip. The hotel has pretty good facilities and the other good choice in town, the Harborside Hotel, also has great rooms but at twice the price and it gets real busy in town once the season starts up. Another well-situated hotel seems to be the Bar Harbor Inn right by the bayside. The shoreline scenic walk runs right by that hotel. We went early to beat the crowds and in early June you can park your car anywhere and go anywhere without any problem, although not everything is open and functional, but it’s good enough. Very scenic area with beautiful walks and forestry; the center of town has parks and beautiful water views with islands in the middle of the bay. We enjoyed a night out at Reel Pizza; they show all sorts of movies and you can sit on sofas and eat fresh pizza with your choice of like 30 toppings.  Eden Restaurant in town had fantastic vegetarian food and desserts. The Brown Bag Café had good sandwiches and paninis for lunch. Jeannie’s Breakfast was also excellent; they had a vegetarian eggs benedict and french toast with cream cheese filling and strawberry rhubarb topping. Jekyll and Hyde on the Wharf had some of the best fish and chips we’ve had.  Acadia National Park is the nation’s smallest national park and the only one in the Northeast but it is very pretty and you definitely want to have lunch at Jordan Pond, one of the most scenic places you will ever lunch in the US. The food is really good too; they serve popovers and fresh ice cream. We drove the loop road around the park and took some of the nature paths; we took about 5 hours to do it and made the 27 mile circuit and went to the top of Cadillac Mountain. Try to go on a clear day. There is a 15 minute orientation film at the Visitors Center. Do this with your own car instead of a bus or trolley tour. Lots of interesting things to see there. Horse carriage rides on the park’s carriage roads don’t start till June 15 so we missed them; and we didn’t have time to walk on the carriage roads that Rockefeller built a century ago. We found a good children’s toy store in town called Stone Soup on Main Street. For dinner with a view go to Chart House on the water a few miles out of town. The Criterion Theater is in town and is a historical landmark. To return to New York, we drove an hour to Bangor, Maine. The airport has 3 gates and then it’s just over an hour’s flight back to New York.
We are told that best time to visit is in last week of September and first week of October for peak foliage.

Orlando – I was there twice this month for business. Marriott has a 2,000 room hotel called the World Center. Food is fresh there which is amazing for a Marriott although they have turnover in this their largest Marriott in the world. They also spray the place to keep bugs away; last month I was at the Peabody Hotel and you could hardly sit at the pool there with all the big insects around you.Amazing how Orlando has grown; the airport is huge and when I first visited 35 years ago all you had was Walt Disney World and two hotels – the Contemporary and the Polynesian – and a few cheap motels. Now everybody has a hotel and convention center and there is so much expansion that never seems to stop.

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