The Portland Head Light lighthouse was completed in 1791. It has been called the most-photographed lighthouse in the world. It's said the American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow would walk the five miles from Portland to the lighthouse to visit his friend the lighthouse keeper.

Two elements created Maine's coastline, fire and ice.

Over the last million years, a series of glaciers scraped and shaped the landscape, pushing topsoil into the sea and exposing the granite skeleton underneath.

The last ice wall left a mound of rocky debris, called a glacial moraine, 360 miles out to sea.

But the land's loss was the sea's gain as this moraine deflects the Atlantic's currents, mixing warm water from the south and colder water from the north to a create a cool oxygen-rich marine habitat.

And fire did much to shape the present coastal cities of Portland and Bar Harbor.

During a tour of Portland, a guide seemed to end every other sentence about the birthplace of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the author of “Paul Revere's Ride,” with the phrase “It burned to the ground.”

Settled by the British in 1658 and then known Falmouth, the village was sacked and burned by the Wampanog Indians during King Philip's War in 1676.

The British returned to the area — which was then considered part of Massachusetts — and built Fort Loyal, which touched off the Battle of Fort Loyal in 1690 when a force of French troops and Indian fighters laid siege to the fort and settlement.

After the fort surrendered, the fort and community were put to the torch.

In 1771 Thompson's War was an early American Revolutionary War confrontation between a patriot militia led by Samuel Thompson and crown loyalists supported by the British sloop the HMS Canceaux. The confrontation ended without fatalities, but provoked the retaliatory burning of Falmouth by the British five months later.

It wasn't war but carelessness that started what is still known as the July 4, 1866, Great Fire.

It started in a boathouse on Commercial Street, sparked some say by boys playing with firecrackers.

The fire spread across the city, eventually burning out on Munjoy Hill in the city's east end. Two people died in the fire. Ten thousand people were left homeless and 1,800 buildings were burned to the ground.

Today, Portland, the largest city in Maine, with a population of just over 67,000, has a city seal that fittingly features a phoenix rising from the ashes.The sea remains an important part of the city's economy. It has an active waterfront that supports fishing and commercial shipping.South of the city at the entrance to the ship channel leading to Portland Harbor is the Portland Head Light, called the most-photographed lighthouse in the world.It's certainly the oldest lighthouse in the state with construction, ordered by George Washington, completed in 1791.Tradition has it that Longfellow would often walk the five miles from his parents' house in Portland to visit his friend the lighthouse keeper.A visit to Portland Head Light reveals the effects of the glaciers. Granite boulders poke through the sparse vegetation. Signs warn of the dangers of climbing on the wet rocks near the waterline.If you are looking for sandy beaches you aren't going to find them in Maine.But that didn't stop the Bush family from building their family compound on Walker Point in Kennebunkport, 28 miles south of Portland.The 41st president, the late George H.W. Bush, spent much of his childhood at the estate in Kennebunkport.And as he and his son, George W. Bush, the 43rd president, rose to political prominence, the former fishing village became a popular summer colony and seaside tourist destination.

Just don't think you can roll up on Walker Point and take a selfie in the front yard.Walker Point is still guarded by Secret Service agents. Planes and boats are warned away from the air and water surrounding the point, and tour buses are forbidden to stop on the roads around the compound.But the Main Street in Kennebunkport is lined with art galleries, gift shops and restaurants to take visitors' minds off any perceived snub.Kennebunkport has had a long history of being a summer retreat for the rich as does Bar Harbor 200 miles to the north.Located on Mount Desert Island, Bar Harbor was a summer playground for the wealthy until, you guessed it, a devastating 10-day wildfire caused by a severe drought burned through the eastern half of the island in October 1947.Sixty seven summer homes and five historic hotels were destroyed, while the business district was spared.

Today, Bar Harbor's business district is filled with restaurants, shops, galleries and Sherman's Maine Coast Bookshop, whose well-stocked shelves contain a large collection of local histories and guide books.But the best reason to visit Bar Harbor is Acadia National Park, whose mountains, rocky shores and forests have been drawing artists, illustrators and other visitors since at least 1860.Acadia National Park was established in 1919 and today contains 49,052 acres spread across three main areas: Mount Desert Island, a tract of land on the mainland and the Isle Au Haut, which is accessible only by boat.Much of the land that makes up Acadia was donated by wealthy individuals.In fact, beginning in 1915, John D. Rockefeller Jr. financed, designed and directed the construction of a network of carriage roads throughout the park.

Today about 45 miles of carriage roads are maintained and accessible within park boundaries. Granite coping stones along carriage road edges act as guard rails and are nicknamed “Rockefeller's Teeth.”The rich still summer in Bar Harbor. According to tour guides, Martha Stewart and TV show producer Dick Wolf are among those with estates on Seal Harbor.But the best reason to visit is the hiking, biking and breathtaking views offered by the mountains and waters of Acadia National Park.

A series of glaciers scraped the Maine coast clear of topsoil and exposed the granite bedrock. Sandy beaches are not a feature of Maine's shoreline.

Kennebunkport, south of Portland, was transformed from a fishing village into a tourist destination by its most famous inhabitants, the Bush family, who have a summer home on nearby Walker's Point.

Residents of Maine seem terribly fond of the lobster going so far as to put it on their state license plate at various points in the state's history. Restaurants advertise lobster tails, lobster rolls, lobster bisque and lobster Thermidor. The true Maine lobster dish is probably a whole boiled lobster served with corn, red potatoes and mussels.

SHARING HIS SNAPSHOTS is Eric Freehling of Middlesex Township, who took a trip to Maine and found eating a lobster was too much effort for too little payoff.