My quest continued the last weekend of June with an extended long weekend spent in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Maria and I had been to Merrimack New Hampshire and had spent an overnight in Kennebunkport, Maine, travelling with good friends of ours over 20 years ago and had thoroughly enjoyed our visit to New England at that time. But we had not been back to the area since, save for the few hours we spent driving through Vermont, Maine and New Hampshire en route to Nova Scotia a few years back. We were originally just looking to get away for the weekend and only by pure accident did we decide to head to Portsmouth. Originally we had intended on staying in Concord NH, but didn’t like the reviews of the hotel we had originally booked there so I started looking at options and found one we liked in Portsmouth. Let me simply say, thank goodness for the poor reviews or we never would have discovered the wonderful city that is Portsmouth.
Nestled on the coast bordering Maine, I would not classify the city of Portsmouth, New Hampshire as one of the most beautiful ones I’ve ever visited. In fact, when you head to the downtown core along Market Street adjacent to the Harbour, you pass right by a huge rusty pile of scrap metal. And the fact that I-95 cuts the city in two doesn’t help matters either. But get yourself downtown and things dramatically change and it is a wonderful, charming place to be. With some houses and buildings over 300 years old and with a rich history as being one of the major destinations of immigrants to the U.S. that in itself is enough of a draw to bring scads of visitors each year. Add to that the multitude of quaint shops and restaurants and you’ve got an extremely vibrant area that warrants a visit. And the no-tax aspect never hurts when you’re making purchases!
Bottom line, we lucked into a wonderful mini vacation and we are already making plans for a return visit.
As for golf, I managed to fit in a round at a public course near our hotel (in New Hampshire) and also travelled up the road about ½ hour into Maine for an early morning round on Monday at a nice links course in Berwick. One round was extremely enjoyable and one of my better ones in awhile (well at least the front nine), while the other round was less so.
