The other day, I wrote about my experiences in Portland, Maine. The parks were impressive, the scenery was beautiful, and the food was delicious, especially the seafood. However, not just wanting to stay in one place, my fiancée and I packed our stuff and headed north to Brunswick.

Our first day didn't have the best weather as it rained throughout the day. However, that didn't stop us from enjoying the various attractions that were weather independent and the subsequent days were better.

The Bowdoin College Museum of Art

The first place we went to was Bowdoin College Museum of Art. Compared to the art museums of major cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and New York City, this one was much smaller. However, I actually liked that as I could look at everything without the worry of running out of time. Exhibits ranged from Assyrian art and relics to 21st century photography.

My favorite parts of the museum were the Assyrian and Urbanizing America exhibits. It was very cool seeing preserved items from one of the earliest human civilizations, including the Cuneiform tablets. In the latter exhibit, I found Lewis Wickes Hine's photo of construction workers riveting steel beams to be very impressive. Seriously, those workers have some major balls constructing skyscrapers at such high places

Another piece of art that caught my eye was Yun-Fei Ji's The Three Gorges Dam Migration. It does a really good job capturing the melancholy of the Chinese who were forced to migrate from their homes to accommodate the Chinese Communist Party's Three Gorges Dam project.

This is just a small portion of the painting. On the leftmost part, you will see CCP officers patrolling along the Yangtze River as if to make sure the Chinese inhabitants leave. (Not my photo, by the way)

Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens

We traveled a bit further up north to Boothbay to visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. The area was very large, featuring a butterfly house, flower gardens, the backwoods, and ponds.

The amount of biodiversity was extremely impressive with the gardens housing several species of angiosperms (flowering plants). Not only that, but a lot of bees and monarch butterflies pollinated the flowers.

The ponds also housed many other insects and animals. We saw a bunch of blue damselflies and dragonflies. You can tell the difference between them by their size and the way they fly. Damselflies are smaller and more slender, and they sort of hover like a drone. Dragonflies have a thicker body and whiz around. Because they flew around so quickly, I couldn't get a good picture of one. However, I did get a decent picture of an American toad that also lived close by to one of the ponds.

In the backwoods, there were an abundances of trees and various species of ferns. There was also a section dedicated to rhododendrons, though as it is summertime, they already flowered long ago during the spring. We also went on the small pier in the backwoods for a good view of the Back River.

Maine Maritime Museum

After the botanical gardens, we visited the Main Maritime Museum in Bath. My fiancée and I weren't familiar with ship construction back in the late 1800s to 1900s. However, we were intrigued at the various techniques workers of Percy & Small used to construct schooners, particularly the Wyoming. Outside, the museum has a sculpture that approximates how big the Wyoming is. It's pretty crazy that people were able to accomplish such a feat back in the early 1900s.

Also, the Kennebec River that's behind the museum is gorgeous.

The Food

Portland set a pretty high bar, but we were extremely impressed with Brunswick's offerings. The oysters from Maine St. Steak & Oyster were very tasty. They offered three different types each of which had a distinct flavor, ranging from salty to buttery to sweet and tangy. Their other stuff like the beef pot roast was top notch, too.

Enoteca Athena serves really good Italian food. The funghi bruschetta and Genovese Napoletana made for a great 1-2 combo. As for my other recommendations, the Little Dog Coffee Shop is great for getting a quick breakfast and the Gelato Fiasco serves really good gelato. The Maine wild blueberry flavor, especially, was enjoyable.