Saturday, June 11, 2011

Portsmouth, NH!!!

Jim and I spent a spontaneous day in Portsmouth, NH last weekend! This is one of those perfect New England seaside towns with great food, fun pubs, tons of culture, beautiful flowers, lots of history and much, much more!

We started our day of at a whimsical place called the Friendly Toast. This restaurant is covered with vintage memorabilia! The diverse menu caters to everyone and includes breakfast all day too (love that)! Their sweet potato fries are amazing! They have many vegetarian options which makes me happy!

This object was floating in the upper corner of the restaurant. There were other creepy large plastic boys strewn about.

The back of this booth is covered in vintage prints. It appeared all the seating was vintage too!

It turns out there is one of these restaurants in Cambridge, MA too which we will need to check out!

After some nourishment, Jim got a little silly!

We strolled around the city. One stop was the Portsmouth Brewery which was celebrating its 20th anniversary.

I had a lovely summer ale and Jim had a dark brew which I did not care for.

We walked the perimeter of Strawberry Banke. This 10 acre museum has perserved old homes/buildings, keeping it a village like it would have been around late 1700s.

Actors are within the homes explaining lifestyles and demonstrating cooking and gardening activities of long ago (well, long ago in American eyes).

We did not go in the museum grounds but I remember going as a child on a school fieldtrip and being fascinated. The simple ways of life back then have always intrigued me! Life is so complicated now with an overwhelming amount of stimulus from crazy world happenings to reliability on technology!!!

We walked by the oldest home in New England, circa 1702! It is actually on the market. What a neat home that would be to own!!! It had been built by the Richard Wibird, an officer in the British Royal Navy, a merchant, a member of The King's Council and a benefactor of Harvard College.

We also stopped at the Gaslight. This pub has an outdoor patio. A talented man was on stage....just him and his guitar performing many current hits with is own spin on them! We enjoyed DELICIOUS blueberry beer which is from the Sea Dog Brewery of Maine.

We walked the 10 acre Prescott Park and approached this beautiful formal garden. A nice man kindly offered to take our photo for us!

Love the Japanese crabapple trees! The 3 fountains in here make it a perfect spot!



We checked out this 2 year old Street a.k.a. Museum which had deep, dark art within!

The neat part of this museum was that it included actual street art throughout the city which you could look up on a map. Here are some that we found. Next time we will have to find the rest of the artwork!



Pretty flowers by the sidewalk. I believe these were on someone's private property but since they were so perfect and huge, I had to take photos!!!


So we LOVE this city and plan on a 2 night stay in July. It will be romantic and fun since we will get to check out the nightlife and not worry about driving!

Have a wonderful week! We have finally started having summer-like weather in New England so hopefully it continues. ~Val

18 comments:

  1. Hello Val...I like and I eat vegetarian food, too. Good travel, nice photos,and... lovely memories! Congrat and hughs.

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  2. Hey Val...I love the great pictures. I am not sure why I wasn't a follower of your blog, now I am. I just wanted to thank you for all the comments that you leave on my blog. Cheers. Anna xoxo

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  3. Looks and sounds like you had a fantastic time. I'm looking forward to some kind of vacation soon!

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  4. Interesting place, it is so lovely!

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  5. That is certainly a nice place to visit...I am jealous and hurray for summer weather (just not too hot please!!!)

    *You two are a cute couple!

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  6. Val, what a beautiful trip you had with Jim. You guys really look so happy together, that is why I must have assumed he was your hubby. : )

    Never been to NH but this looks like a beautiful town to visit, will have to go sometime.

    Ruth

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  7. WOW sounds a very fun outing!! It was nice to enjoy the place though your eyes, I've never been there, but kinda feels I did :)

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  8. Looks like you had a great day! What fun:) Thanks fro stopping by my blog and following!

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  9. What a lovely place to take a trip. Those flowers are fasinating and the beer looks refreshing. Thank you for sharing.

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  10. WOW, was a wonderful time you must have had!! and what gorgeous pics!!
    XO
    Cindy

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  11. What an amazing city!! Everything looks spectacular. I love New England and this place looks like it embodies everything I love about it, so you've definitely made me want to visit. Maybe someday... I really hope so!

    Glad you had such a pleasant trip. ^__^ And that you got such lovely pictures to go with your memories, too!

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  12. You and your man are so adroable. Such beautiful pictures, and those flowers look almost too perfect to be real.
    I hope you have many days like that this summer.

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  13. So many things to see in such a wonderful city! Makes me want to travel there, just reading your blog. :) Wonderful!

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  14. It looks like a fun historic town. I love too look at old architecture. It is fun to think of the what it was like back then and how the people lived. Thank You for commenting on my blog. Do you ever go to art retreats? Like Art-is-you You should check out there site for some great artsy events.

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  15. Looks like a fun place to visit - sounds like you really enjoyed it & got lots of exersize! Thanks for visiting my blog!

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  16. Really looks like you had fun. What a lot to see and do!! Fabulous photos...they really capture the feel of the place!

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  17. Val, this would be my kind of day! I really really hope I can get back to New England before I leave this world. So many more things I want to see! And only got to explore D.C. 20 years ago.

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  18. What lovely pictures ..sometimes just one day of getting away feels like such a welcome change in our usual mundane lives , doesn't it ..?
    I love spending a day like this ..exploring , walking , a lil shopping and some drinking ;) :D

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Thank you for stopping by! I love reading visitor comments! ~Val