RUMPUS ROOM BRUNSWICK MOVIE

Somehow this small town of 22,000 people manages to sustain four Japanese restaurants, four Chinese, three Thai, two Indian, one Greek, and four Mexican (and IвЂ™m probably overlooking a few). If youвЂ™re looking for something more exotic, youвЂ™re in luck. Move on to lunch at Big Top Deli or Scarlet Begonias.ДЇor dinner, you canвЂ™t go wrong with Henry and Marty, Clementine Restaurant, or the Great Impasta. For the wheat intolerant, look for local Wildflours gluten-free baked goods. Begin the day at Little Dog Coffee Shop, the Bohemian Coffee House, Frontier Cafe, or Wild Oats Bakery and Cafe. Like any good college town, coffee hangouts, bistros, and watering holes abound and are frequented by locals and students alike. And make sure to come back in the summer for six weeks of chamber music performances by 250 acclaimed visiting musicians at the Bowdoin International Music Festival. Luckily, we even figure out a way to do both.Д«owdoinвЂ™s dance performances and athletic games are also worth viewing check the Bowdoin website for schedules. The fact that Brunswick has two excellent film venues is evidence of its cultural character.

RUMPUS ROOM BRUNSWICK MOVIE

We try to decide between a movie at Eveningstar Cinema, which has been playing independent films in the Tontine Mall since 1979, and a film at Frontier Cafe, our favorite place for entertainment (film, music, performances, art) and eats, which overlooks the Androscoggin River in the high-ceilinged, tall-windowed Fort Andross Mill. The Pejepscot Historical Society is housed across Park Row in the Italiante brick Skolfield-Whittier House (the museum is open seasonally from June to October). Pointing our walking shoes downtown, we strolled along the Mall (the name for the town green), which features an ice-skating rink in winter. While the house is closed during the winter, his statue presides across Maine Street. Chamberlain Museum preserves the former home of the Civil War hero, governor of Maine, and Bowdoin student and president.

Next door, the Bowdoin College Museum of Art features Where hath fleeting beauty led? Selections of Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Art through January 22, with works by John Singer Sargent, Fairfield Porter, Winslow Homer, John Sloan, Alex Katz, and other renowned artists. Today, the Peary-MacMillan Arctic Museum in Hubbard Hall on the Bowdoin campus is the place to learn more about these intrepid explorers and to view Inuit art. Class of 1877 alum Robert Peary would later claim to be the first man to reach the geographic North Pole, and fellow Bowdoinite Donald MacMillan assisted him on his expeditions and led several of his own. Next we walk Cleaveland Street to visit the First Parish Church, where, during a communion service, Stowe first envisioned a key scene in Uncle TomвЂ™s Cabin.Д«owdoin is also the alma mater of our fourteenth president, Franklin Pierce, who was friendly with Hawthorne and Longfellow. Just down the street at 25 Federal we visit the since-renovated home where Longfellow boarded during his years as a Bowdoin professor. Given that the book would help incite opposition to slavery and lead our nation into the Civil War, the historical import of those readings is profound. Okay, maybe IвЂ™m a literary nerd, but our daytime walking tour of town had to include the Federal-style house at 63 Federal Street (not open to the public) where Stowe hosted readings of the Uncle TomвЂ™s Cabin manuscript while it was still in progress. ItвЂ™s due to Bowdoin College that Brunswick can claim Harriet Beecher Stowe as a former resident (her husband was a professor there), as well as poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (he was both a professor and student) and his 1825 classmate Nathaniel Hawthorne, author of The Scarlet Letter. It becomes an engaging 48-hour escape during which my husband and I find ourselves in the good company of friendly locals and vacationers and discover a dynamic mix of interesting historical icons and great eateries. For me, domiciled 15 minutes away in Freeport, Brunswick turns out to be more than a cool neighboring town. The charm of Brunswick comes from many elements-a history of wealthy shipbuilders and manufacturers, a prestigous college, an active main street, and a dynamic natural landscape-that converge to create its vibrant liveability. These words from Uncle TomвЂ™s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe when she lived in Brunswick in the 1850s, apply as aptly to the whirl of activities in the town today. вЂњThere is a most busy and important round of eating, drinking, dressing, walking, visiting, buying, selling, talking, reading, and all that makes up what is commonly called livingвЂ¦вЂќ

By Melissa Coleman | Illustration by Josh BrillД¤8 Hours of our favorite places to view, eat, play, shop, and stay

Rumpus room brunswick