Portland

Eastern Promenade

Date visited: 8/22/2025

This is a large park along Casco Bay near downtown Portland. The main feature is the paved walkway along the bay. The western end of the trail passes near a water treatment facility, and is lined with graffiti tagged walls. The eastern end of the trail is nicer. This is the main part of the trail, with access to East End Beach, and the rocky shoreline. As the trail curves around the south, it passes by a couple marinas, before ending near the ferry terminals. Train tracks run parallel to the trail that provide scenic rides during the summer months. We walked the entire length of the trail and back, and even extended our walk a bit to reach Bell Buoy Park just past the ferry terminals. Mandy and Lexi got into the water to cool off at a boat launch near the beach, but they weren't allowed on the main beach itself until after 5PM. (Luckily we were just finishing up our walk around that time). A drought caused much of the grass to dry up, so the environment wasn't as green as it normally would be this time of year, but it was still very scenic walk along the bay. We walked about five and half miles total during this fun, late-summer adventure.

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Bell Buoy Park

Date visited: 8/22/2025

This is a small park in downtown Portland near the ferry terminals. We passed through here as part of our Eastern Promenade adventure.

East End Beach

Date visited: 8/22/2025

This is a beach along Casco Bay, near the center of the Eastern Promenade trail. Dogs are allowed here during the summer months (Memorial Day to Labor Day), after 5PM, and can be off-leash as well. There was actually a small line of people and dogs waiting to enter the beach area just before 5PM! This beach isn't going to wow you. It's not Old Orchard Beach for sure! There are no real waves here, as the beach is tucked far inside a large bay, and the sand is gravely and not smooth. Hurricane Erin was off-shore wrecking havoc on the northeast coastline, but no signs of that here. Mandy and Lexi prefer beaches like this anyway. They got to run around a bit, and play with some of the other dogs, while going in an out of the water. It's always fun to watch the dogs have fun on the beach!