 Beyond Lincolnville and its low-profile neighbor, Northport, is Belfast, shiretown of Waldo County. Popular with back-to-the-landers in the seventies, Belfast still has a funky vibe, with an over-the-top art deco movie house, crunchy food co-op, noted theater troupe, and various coffee shops and eateries.
And it has enjoyed a remarkable boom in the past decade with the arrival of banking titan MBNA, which now employs some 2,000 people here to service its credit-card empire. Some of Maine's finest architecture can be found in Belfast's quiet neighborhoods  The gateway to Acadia, Ellsworth is Hancock County's shiretown, best known for the plazas and strip malls that stretch for several miles down Route 1 and Route 3. One of the most visited of the nation's parks, Acadia National Park, on Mount Desert Island, is a breathtaking combination of rounded mountains and crashing surf.
Most of these visitors end up in Bar Harbor, with its myriad bed-and-breakfasts, shops, and restaurants. Several of the island's other communities, such as Somesville, Southwest Harbor, and Northeast Harbor, also attract sizable populations of summer residents and shoulder-season visitors. |
