Welcome to day 20 of 31 Days of Heterotopias: Motels and Hotels, a month of posts about how motels, hotels, and inns function as heterotopias and liminal spaces in society.  (More about heterotopias and liminal spaces.)  Each post will look at these ideas from its own vantage point, which may not obviously connect with the others, and which may mention motels and hotels only peripherally or may focus on them without referencing heterotopia or liminality. I won’t attempt to tie the posts together. They’ll all be listed here, as they are posted.

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As I mentioned previously, there are six motels/hotels that we (spouse and I) stay at over and over. I’ve posted about The Holiday Inn Express in Savannah, Georgia, and the Middlebury Inn in Vermont. Today I’ll tell you about another of our favourites, the Footbridge Beach Motel in Ogunquit, Maine.

The Footbridge Beach Motel is really just a basic roadside motel, with a pool (which we’ve never used), with wifi (which we require), but what makes it perfect for us is that it’s a 5-10 minute walk to the Footbridge Beach — usually quite uncrowded, even in the middle of summer, and if you drive there in season you pay a $20 parking fee — and a 1.3-mile walk on a sidewalk into the lively tourist town of Ogunquit (about a 25-minute walk for us), which means we can leave the car most of the time at the motel and walk to the beach and town. (There’s also a trolley shuttle to town in July and August.) And there are good places to eat across from and next to the motel.

They also accept pets, which mattered to us when we first started visiting Ogunquit in 2012.

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It’s a relaxing spot, both the motel and the beach. Photos below were taken at the end of August 2012, mid-June 2015, and late May-early June 2016.

Property exterior

Our room(s)

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The Foot Bridge (across the Ogunquit River to the Atlantic Ocean)

Footbridge Beach

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Ogunquit – Marginal Way: A one-mile walk along the coast from the Sparhawk Motel to Perkins Cove

“I looked along the San Juan Islands and the coast of California, but I couldn’t find the palette of green, granite, and dark blue that you can only find in Maine.” –Parker Stevenson

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Ogunquit – Restaurants and Cafes: Lots of good ones! We like Back Yard coffee house   for breakfast, and Banditos Mexican Grill, Caffe Prego, and La Orilla tapas for lunch/dinner.

And Angelina’s Ristorante: Wine Bar & Tuscan Grille, across from the Footbridge Motel, is nice, too (both photos Aug. 2012):

BeachFire Bar & Grille, right next to the motel:

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Beach Plum Farm – community garden on the way from the motel to Ogunquit

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Can’t forget the inspirational trash cans around town, of which these are but three:

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*post title lyric from Vacation by Thomas Rhett

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