Welcome to Acadia National Park's Schoodic Area in Winter Harbor, Maine.   This part of Acadia National Park covers 2366 acres and is home to SERC (Schoodic Education and Research Center).  It is the only part of Acadia on the mainland not severed from the mainland as the island was during the ice age millions of years ago.  You are just a stone's throw away across the water to Cadillac Mountain.  This shoreline is bold and beautiful with pink and gray granite rock.  You can park at 3 major areas in this Schoodic area or find a private pull over.  There are restrooms and picnic tables in the park.   This is a park that allows you to literally drive along the crashing surf with many opportunities to pull over and enjoy.  There is no charge to enter the park where you can hike, cycle, have cookouts, watch sail boats and lobster boats, or just sit back and relax.   It is quiet and unprentious.   Schoodic is comprised of fishing villages, many still in tact with historical buildings and quaint cottages along the sea.  You may feel as if you have stepped back in time as you drive through them, many with  mom and pop convenience stores which are really neat to grab a bite to eat.    At Schoodic,  in Prospect Harbor,  you'll find Stinsons Seafood, the only fishing cannery that exists in Maine,  which was bought by Bumble Bee Tuna. The ancestral lineages of family is strong in this part of the Maine.   Life in this part of Maine is a true freedom, seemingly a world away, but not.   There is an easiness about  being Downeast  as it is free from the hustle and bustle, yet there are shops, restaurants, arts and social clubs in the villages.    In Winter Harbor, you'll find mansions that indulge the waterfront,  just across the waters from friends in Bar Harbor.  You are not far from Ellsworth where all major amenities can be found and less than hour from Bangor.  An 8 mile drive off of route 1 (The Downeast Highway) takes you to Acadia's Schoodic Peninsula.   To get there, headed Downeast from Ellsworth on High Street where all the major shops and food chains are located bear left at the Y to go onto Route 1 and head toward Schoodic.   Once you reach the Schoodic National Scenic Byway about 15 minutes through small towns and fishing villages, you'll see the signs for Gouldsboro and Winter Harbor.  Take a right onto Route 186 and follow it to Winter Harbor to the Park entrance.   The park is free of charge and provides a 7.2 mile drive along the Ocean's edge providing spectacular views of crashing surf, lobsters boats and shorebirds.  There are also many trails to hike.     From Bar Harbor, you can take the Acadia Free Shuttles on the  Island Explorer Bus that serves the Acadia Schoodic Peninsula which stops in Winter Harbor, Prospect Harbor and Birch Harbor.    It connects with the Bar Harbor-Winter Harbor Ferry from June - October.  You can also hop on one of these shuttles on Mount Desert Island as well.

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