We even enjoyed our rainy day on Monhegan. We’d met new friends, a couple from Provincetown (celebrating their first anniversary), and two women both traveling alone, one from New Jersey and and other from Vermont. We fell in easily together, painting in the common room on the first floor, and later in the day, collecting on the fourth floor hall in front of a window to sketch. (You can see my sketch below.)

We also visited some island galleries and you can see what I appreciated there below as well. I’ve also included in this post the food we enjoyed on the island– quite delicious! Most of the food you see here came included in our room rate at the Monhegan House, and is a real attraction to staying there. Those fried oysters, however, came from the island brewery, and that zingy ginger soda is a special Maine treat.

If you go to Monhegan, don’t miss Nite Nite Fatty’s. The rain had just stopped, and we went out after dinner in the pitch dark, following the glow of twinkle lights, which led around to the back of The Cracked Mug, up the stairs and right into Melanie’s kitchen. We got her Ina Garten’s Chocolate Cake with Expresso Icing, and the best Salted Chocolate Cookies ever. We were wishing the next day we’d bought more of those! Melanie is now a blog reader so maybe she’ll give us her recipe? Of course we devoured them with no photo record other than the lousy second to last photo below that I took of her. Since it was not representative, I stole the last one from her Instagram to give you a better feel. It was a memorable, magical grace note to our trip.

Both the sense of open-hearted community and the good food, largely impacted our enjoyment of our visit, especially when the weather was unconducive for hiking and painting outside.