Freeport--World’s Best Bargains

If the thought of Christmas shopping with all its hassles gives you an aggravated case of the jitters, you might want to consider doing your stocking stuffing here where Main Street looks as if it was laid out by Santa and his elves just for your Yuletide convenience.

All of Freeport’s stores throw a 24-hour shopping bash just before Christmas, convinced that procrastination is a basic human trait.

What brings folks here from New England and beyond is simple: Freeport is the factory-outlet capital of the planet.

It’s home base for the venerable and never-shuttered L. L. Bean, and there are outlets for Polo-Ralph Lauren, Reebok, Anne Klein, Calvin Klein, Bogner & Benetton, Fanny Farmer, London Fog and several others. The big lure is prices up to 70% off those at your hometown mall.

Yet folks here aren’t lost in a cloud of cash register tapes; they want very much to preserve the New England village character of their town, so much so that Arby’s and McDonald’s fill your fast-food order from restored Victorian houses on Main Street.

Besides shopping, other reasons for a visit are cruising colorful Casco Bay, downing fresh lobster hot from the pot for a pittance, beaches in summer and cross-country skiing in winter.

To here: Fly USAir, Delta or Continental to Portland with changes. From there it’s 18 miles to Freeport.

How long/how much? A day or so should do it, unless you’re determined to mount an attack on all 86 stores. Lodging and dining costs are moderate.

A few fast facts: Apart from the pre-Christmas season, July and August are the busiest months, late spring and autumn beautiful. Locals say that when it rains the entire state comes here to shop, some spending the full day in the cavernous confines of L. L.Bean.

Getting settled in: The Bagley House (Route 3, Box 269C; $70 B&B; double with bath, $60-$65 shared bath), built in 1772, is the area’s oldest house, having served as a schoolhouse, inn, place of worship and first store. Pine floors, hand-hewn beams, working fireplace and a cozy library greet guests.

The country kitchen, with huge brick fireplace opening on two sides, is where guests gather at an eight-foot antique baker’s table for breakfast: “decadent” French toast (croissants dipped in eggs, cream, orange zest and Triple Sec); blueberry pancakes; Sister Abigail’s Blue-Flower Omelet (made with chive blossoms).

Bedrooms have homemade quilt covers, great antique chests and fresh flowers, ours being a wreath of larkspur. Affable innkeeper Sig Knutsen has been known to cook up a lobster dinner for guests in that great kitchen.

Freeport Inn (Route 1; $58-$68 double) is the town’s largest motel, a traditional building on 25 acres, with swimming pool, a lake for ice skating in winter. Their Muddy Rudder restaurant draws visitors and locals for its Down East seafood.

The Isaac Randall House (Independence Drive; $75-$85 B&B; double, June-October, $10 less off-season), a lovely, Federal-style farmhouse on five wooded acres, was built in 1823. Another great old-fashioned kitchen here with huge wood-burning stove, copper pots on walls.

All rooms are decorated differently; the Honeymoon Room is done in rose and white with old valentines on walls. Owner-hosts Glynrose and Jim Friedlander know all about coastal Maine.

Regional food and drink: The best dining in Maine is seasonal. Fall and winter are baked beanssupper time, best taken at a church or grange hall on weekends. You get plenty of beans, cole slaw, potato salad, steamed red Maine hot dogs and homemade pie, the spread never costing more than $4.50.

Spring brings fresh strawberries ($1 a quart if you pick your own) and fiddlehead ferns, delicious steamed with butter and lemon. King lobster makes an appearance in early summer, usually served with a mess of steamers (clams), corn on the cob, a salad and a hard-boiled egg. Expect to pay $7 for a 1 1/4-pound lobster.

July is the time for freshwater salmon and tender peas, an unbeatable combination, while fall brings Maine apples and more apple pastries than you can count.

Moderate-cost dining: Head for Harraseeket Lunch & Lobster Co. (on the wharf) for the best of these regal crustaceans in all of Maine, plus basket dinners of clams, scallops, shrimp, crab and fish. You dine by the water at picnic tables on paper plates, with shell cracker, pick and plenty of paper napkins. You may also buy your fill of lobsters (live or boiled and caught daily by company boats) in handy cartons for carrying away.

Jameson Tavern (115 Main St. next to L. L. Bean) was built in 1779 and is considered the birthplace of Maine, because final papers separating the state from Massachusetts were signed here in 1820.

Dine in a casual, pub-like room or in a larger New England room with old prints and captain’s chairs about. An eclectic menu gives you all sorts of steaks and chops, plus a Lazy Man’s Lobster of lobster meat sauteed with butter and cream. There’s also a good selection of stews, chowders and lunchtime sandwiches.

The Muddy Rudder restaurant at Freeport Inn is by an estuary of the Cousins River where you may watch blue herons from the windows. In a handsome dining room with old marine artifacts on the walls, there is a mainstream seafood menu, including baked mussels au gratin, seafood quiche, bluefish pate, crab meat and lobster salad rolls, plus a dozen kinds of fresh fish, subject to market availability.

On your own: L. L. Bean is the senior citizen and geographic point of reference, with other companies and services printing “only minutes from L. L. Bean . . . five miles south . . . very near” on their advertising. Bean also offers free instruction in such outdoor activities as canoeing, fly casting, shooting, country cooking, archery and cross-country skiing.

Daily departures from the Freeport Town Wharf will take you on a seal-watch cruise of Casco Bay, one evening cruise going to Chebeague Island for dinner at an old island inn, another to Eagle Island for swimming, beachcombing and a demonstration of lobstering. There is also a foliage cruise along coastal Maine.

For more information: Call the Freeport Merchants Assn. at (207) 865-1212, or write (Box 452, Freeport 04032) for a brochure-map with description and location of shops, accommodations, restaurants and points of interest in and around town.

New England USA at (617) 423-6967 (76 Summer St., Boston 02110) will send a large booklet showing attractions in all six states.