• 1. Where to Stay
• 2. Where to Eat
• 3. What to Do
• 4. Insider’s Tip
• 5. An Oddball Day

The Maine Lobster festival serves up 20,000 pounds of lobster over five days.   (Photo: manray3 via Flickr)

Reap the benefits of this season’s lobster glut during Rockland’s five-day Maine Lobster Festival ($5-$8, $25 for a four-day pass, free on Sunday) in August. The annual festival, now in its 65th year, served up nearly 20,000 pounds of lobster last year. Events include live music, an amateur-only seafood cooking contest, races, and even a parade. The food rightly takes center stage, with pickings like lobster rolls ($10), crab cakes ($6), and the “shore dinner,” which includes a whole lobster, steamed clams, and an ear of corn ($24).

Learn about Maine’s role in American art history at the Farnsworth Museum ($12), where the collection of more than 10,000 works celebrates artists whose careers were closely associated with the state, including a large selection of paintings made by three generations of Wyeths. Current exhibitions showcase local artist Frank W. Benson’s impressionist works (through October 21) and a collection of Andrew Wyeth’s early-career watercolors (through November 4).

Stop by Hello Hello Books for its smart collection of new and used books, including locally minded titles like Annie Mahle’s new cookbook, Sugar & Salt: A Year at Home and Ben Ames Williams’s Fraternity Village, a collection of short stories set in rural Maine. In addition, you’ll find hip magazines like Lucky Peach, and an eclectic range of non-literary items like handmade jewelry, tote bags, cards, and vintage artwork.

Published on Jul 27, 2012 as a web exclusive.