Romance on the E-Coast

I travel a lot. I often go quite far away from home. I have always wanted to visit Portsmouth, New Hampshire and yet have never quite got around to it. I finally decided that our anniversary trip this year would be Portsmouth. I really wanted to spend 3 days but had to settle for 2 days and 1 night. Barely enough for the essentials but enough to whet my appetite for another visit. I wanted to stay in a romantic Bed and Breakfast with all the comforts that I love and Martin Hill Inn fit the bill perfectly.

One of my main reasons for coming to Portsmouth was to visit Strawberry Banke. This is not just a recreated historical village say on the line of Sturbridge Village. Strawberry Banke was a real neighborhood that has been preserved. You will see houses covering the period 1695 to 1955.

Redhook Brewery This local scion of the Washington based operation offers a tour of their facility that will make any beer aficionado happy. You will not only get to see how the beer is produced and packaged you will get to sample 6 different brews.

Governor John Langdon House. In June there are only two houses open, at least the second weekend of the month. I am not complaining mind you, well yes I am complaining but not because we had to visit this house which is very interesting but because it made me want to visit the others even more.

Quick Tips:

Your first stop in Portsmouth should be the visitor center located at 500 Market St. You will want to get a map of the inner city. There are a lot of one way streets and it is very tight with some streets hardly more than an alleyway. At least with a map you have half a chance. It took me several rides around the downtown to start to get a handle on how the city is laid out. By the time we were coming back from dinner I had it pretty much under control.

There are several websites that you will want to visit before you plan a trip to Portsmouth. One is www.seacoastnh.com . It is an excellent site for not only what to visit but where to stay and where to eat. www.historicnewengland.org will help you to determine when which house are open and when they will be open www.portsmouthchamber.org also has lots of useful information about what is going on. I also found this to be a useful site. www.goseacoast.com .

Best Way To Get Around:

There is a trolley that runs around the city of Portsmouth and it goes to most places that a tourist would want to visit. It however, doesn‘t run on Sunday so it was no help to us. From the Martin Hill Inn most of the inner harbor is about a 15-minute walk or a 5-minute drive. Driving was not a great deal of fun due to narrow streets, lots of traffic, and one way streets, and parking can be difficult. One great thing about Sunday is that all the banks have parking and no customers on Sunday. There is also a lot on Pleasant Street almost across from the Governor John Langdon House and there is a parking garage on the corner of High Street and Hanover. It is the perfect place to park if you plan to eat on the Hill or on Ceres Street.

Portsmouth does not have a commercial airport. The closest one is Manchester, NH. Boston however, is only an hours drive away.

By auto Portsmouth may be reached by Interstate 95 north or the more scenic Route 1.Eastern Amtrak Thruway Bus service also provides an alternative transportation from Boston to Portsmouth.

I did a lot of research before deciding where we would spend our anniversary weekend. I wanted the most romantic room I could find. I also wanted to have a great breakfast included in the price.

I fell in love with the Library the first time I looked at the Martin Hill website but it wasn’t available for Friday or Saturday. Bummer, so I kept looking but nothing else came even close so I did the smart thing I changed our stay to Sunday night.

Margot was waiting when we arrived at 4pm on Sunday with a warm greeting. After showing us to our room she offered to help me pick a restaurant for dinner. She has a whole basket full of menus from local restaurants and we debated the pros and cons of a great many. As it turned out neither one of us had the last say, Al chose the Blue Mermaid. Since we were the first guests to check in Margot took me around and showed me all the other beautiful rooms in both the original house and the guest house.

Whether you want to save a little money and pick one of the less expensive rooms, or you want to have a queen and a twin bedded room decorated with painting done by local artists (which are for sale) every one of them is beautiful and really there is no picking a bad room.

Our room is in the Main house on the second floor. The house unfortunately is not fully handicap accessible. There are several rooms on the first floor but there are still at least a couple of steps to get into the house and because it is an old house the doors are too narrow for a wheel chair. Our room is large and has a canopy bed. I had let Margot know about my preference for down pillows and they were delivered to our room while we were out to dinner. I have to say that before we even visited I had received a call to ask if I had any dietary restrictions and if there was anything they could do to make our night more perfect. I was very impressed with this level of service.

There are no TVs in the house but there is Wi-Fi. There is also air-conditioning. Our room had a comfortable wing back chair where I worked on my computer and a love seat. There is also a desk and chair and a beautiful antique armoire. Lighting was excellent with four lamps and a ceiling fixture. The bathroom has Gilchrest and Soames amenities.

Breakfast is served between 8 and 9am in the dining room and alternates egg and starch choices. We had apple french toast, sausage patties, and slices of watermelon. Breakfast began with cantaloupe. You pick your beverage choice.. We met two honeymoon couples, a business woman and a couple on vacation from Virginia. It was everything we love about B&B.

Who would have guessed that Al would choose a Caribbean grill for dinner? Certainly not me but since I had seen the menu online and though it had some real possibilities I wasn’t about to second guess him. And if Rachael Ray though it was worth a visit with her crew 2 weeks ago, who am I to say ney.

There is a parking garage on Hanover and High Street where you can park for 75 cents an hour or there is a parking lot near the Hills which if it is Sunday will probably have space. If you happen to be staying at the Hilton Garden Inn you will be almost next door.

At the Blue Mermaid you can choose to eat in the lounge, out on the deck, or in the upstairs dining room. We opted for the dining room. There was only one large party up there when we arrived. Our waitress Jennifer was quick to seat us and bring us our drink orders. I had a Tini Bikini Martini, vanilla vodka (it didn’t say Stoli) triple sec, Malibu rum, and pineapple juice. It was a very good martini with the coconut coming out as the dominant flavor and not at all sweet. Al had a Miller lite.

We decided to start with calamari, though if it was up to me I would have had the mussels with curry sauce but Al doesn’t like mussels, so squid it is. Very good squid too, with a thicker than normal crust, tender calamari, and a tomato ancho mayonnaise for dipping. The coating was very peppery. A real tongue tingler.

I decided to have the jerk rub pork tenderloin served with smashed sweet potatoes, mango chutney, and grilled green beans. Al had the Mahi Mahi wood grilled with cilantro adobo and his choice of two sides. He chose sticky herb potatoes and a small garden salad which had a lemon pepper vinaigrette dressing.

The food was outstanding. Everything about it was wonderful. I have not one thing I would do different. It was just delicious.

We decided to split a dessert and we chose a new one on the menu, the El Diablo. It is chocolate ice-cream with spice in it, topped with walnuts and white and dark chocolate fudge. It was huge I don’t recommend that you eat this alone, you will explode. It was just about too much for the two of us to manage. A very unusual sensation, every so often a blast of heat would hit your mouth right in the middle of decedent chocolate.

Service was exceptional and I would certainly love to try out some of their other dishes. Check out their website at menu to get an idea of all the other fabulous meal choices that are available or catch Rachael Ray in August when her Portsmouth Show should air..

One of Al’s statements really rang true with me. After taking the Redhook Brewery Tour he asked me how they could make any money on that tour. Charging only $1 and giving us each free beer and a souvenir glass. Well as we walked out we figured out really quickly how they did it, it’s in the pub. Not that the food is expensive, it isn’t, but after having six or more glasses of beer just about all of us felt the need to sit down and eat some food before even thinking about driving.

The menu here is strictly pub food. Appetizers, salads, sandwiches, and a few entrees make up the menu. When I asked about what they had for dessert it was apple crisp or a brownie. . The special that day was a prime rib for $9.95. A pretty good deal.

We opted to share a Reuben. It was a pastrami Reuben served on sourdough bread with coleslaw and kettle chips. I had a cup of coffee, yes I was pretty serious but sobering up and Al had water. While we were waiting for our lunch to arrive I went over to the gift shop and picked out a T-shirt for Al and some steak rub for me. Okay they are both for Al but I will use the rub to make his steak. It isn’t a huge gift shop but they have six packs of the brew, T-shirts, sweatshirts, caps, and lots of different glasses.

Oh, by the way, if you haven’t already had your fill of beer, there is always a brewers series beer which is only served here and is not sold to the general public. The one that they are serving now is the result of a miscalculation that ended up making one mighty fine beer, go figure.

The Reuben was terrific. The pastrami was totally lean and there was plenty of it. The bread had been grilled to a crusty finish. Excellent. The coleslaw was the kind I like, not Al. It was sweet and a little dry with poppy seeds. If it doesn’t have horseradish Al won’t eat it. I got the pickle too but I let him have the kettle chips—okay I had a few.

Service was quick and efficient the only little glitch was that we had to ask for silverware. The waitresses joked with us that on Sundays they don’t use silverware so I threatened to just stick my face into the coleslaw. It was a very enjoyable lunch and there certainly were people there who had come to eat not to take the tour. Our lunch, with the T-shirt and rub, was $31. Not a bad deal.

The Dunaway Restaurant is committed to being a socially responsible business by supporting local and sustainable farmer, fishers and ranchers.

You have to love a restaurant with a social conscience and if they have fabulous food, well all the better. Margot at the Martin Hill Inn recommend The Dunaway for our Sunday evening dinner but I had already planned to have lunch here on Monday. If you are planning a visit to Strawbery Banke it is absolutely the perfect place to take your lunch break.

From the outside, The Dunaway looks like most of the other historic houses in Strawbery Banke but once you open the door you know you are in for something special. It is open and airy with dining on two floors, maintaining the historical integrity of the exterior while being sleek and modern inside.

We were escorted to a table for two on the balcony overlooking the bar. We had the best seat in the house I thought. Everything is simple except for the menu which has a diverse complexity. Where else could you find roasted beet salad or duck liver mousse on a lunch menu?

I however was not feeling quite so adventurous, I ordered the fresh catch fish sandwich which the day we were there was halibut and frites. Al had the Dunaway burger with Gruyere cheese and frites. The menu is heavy on seafood offering oysters and lobster salad as firsts and ahi tuna nicoise and fish and chips as seconds. Carnivores haven’t been totally neglected with steak frites and roasted chicken sandwich on the menu.

My fish sandwich came on country bread with caper tapenade, lemon aioli, and tomato confit. The fish was white and so mild, exceptional. As good as the sandwich was, the frites were even better. They were seasoned and just wonderful, crispy and perfectly cooked. Al’s burger was very lean but the center was dark pink and juicy, just the way he likes it.

I decided that I had to try one of their desserts. I chose satsuma tangerine sorbet with zaletti cookies. It was so cool and refreshing on a warm day with a cup of tea. I did have a hard time deciding what to try, the lemon souffle with huckleberry compote was hard to pass up. Presentation was beautiful too, the cookies were kept in place with honey, what a great idea.

The Dunaway Restaurant serves both lunch and dinner and I am guessing by the tables I saw set with white linen that the restaurant is a bit more formal at dinner. I have to tell you that even the rest room was classy. Service was very good, it was a bit formal but we never wanted for anything.

Strawbery Banke is not quite like any other historic village I have ever visited. This is not recreated, this is real. Most of the homes here are on their original location. Five were brought here to preserve them from demolition and the Walsh House was moved 60 feet to allow them to create the Goodwin Mansion Gardens. Beyond that, this is a real neighborhood that has existed for over 300 years.

In the center of Strawbery Banke is Puddle Dock. Today it looks like an open meadow but once this was an inland tidal cove and the edges of the dock are still visible. You begin your visit at the Visitor Center. Be prepared for crowds of children, the day we visited there were three bus loads of 5th graders. We just tried to either be in front or behind them but I could not even visit the gift shop, it was that full.

Don’t forget to use your AAA card, it will get you $1 off your ticket, or if you stay at the Martin Hill Inn you can purchase a ticket for $13 which will save you $2 per ticket. You begin by watching a 7-minute video "Four Centuries of Living". It will introduce you to the history of Portsmouth and the Strawbery Banke. The name of the whole city was originally Strawbery Banke from the wild strawberries that the sailors found growing there.

By the 1950s redevelopment was encroaching everywhere and the whole area was in danger of being torn down and replaced with modern structures. Thank goodness the locals recognized the historic nature of what they had and stopped the wrecking before it cleared the area forever.

What you have today are the results of systematic renovation. Some of the buildings are fully furnished, some are partially furnished and some have no furniture at all. Some look as if the family just walked out, others are made into museums. You can learn about architecture and the crafts involved in home building.

You will receive a visitors guide when you get your ticket. The guide will tell you what is going on. One June 12th at 11am there were tavern games and entertainment at the Pitt Tavern; A garden tour at 1:00pm; and more. There were ongoing demonstrations of cooking in the Wheelwrights House and Mrs. Tucker was at Abbott’s Store. Mrs. Tucker was the only interpreter in costume and character. Many of the other houses had guides but they were themselves.

The houses here run the gamut from the Sherbourne House built in 1695 to the Shapiro House, the home of a Ukrainian Jewish Family in about 1910 and there are plenty of things in between. Some are homes, some are businesses. Plan to spend several hours, maybe even more. There is plenty to read along the way. There are also several gardens, both formal, herb and community along your travels.

This is a fun stop and you get to drink some really interesting beer too.

Be warned, it is not easy to find. It's not anywhere near downtown Portsmouth. If you are coming up Interstate 95 exit on #3. Go right at the end of the exit until the road ends. Take a right. This will be Corporate Dr. Keep driving until you get to 35, it will take a while.

One thing about visiting on Sunday is that the brewery is not in production. We get to see all the machinery but it is not operating. Actually since there is no noise it is also a plus. You enter through the pub and go to the bar. It is $1 to take the tour and you are given a sticker to put on your shirt. You also need to show ID. Children may take the tour but they get to sample punch, poor kids

Byron was our guide and Byron loves his work. We were a group of seven adults and two children who gathered in the gift shop for the 12pm first tour of the day. There is an elevator if needed but we walked upstairs to view the tops of the tanks.

We learned a lot about the brewing process and also about the history of Redhook Breweries. If you are interested in knowing about them their website will tell you how they started and how they ended up in New Hampshire and in Washington State. One thing I found particularly interesting was that Anheuser Busch is 25% owner of Redhook. They are silent partners since their name appears nowhere on the packaging.

After visiting the fermenting tanks which are huge we learned a little about the difference between ale and lager. Fascinating stuff for any beer geek, and even those who are just naturally curious.

Hang on though we are now getting to the really good part. The beer sampling. We went back downstairs and were encouraged to sample all six of the brews on tap. The Blond is a light and to me too bland , a sissy brew, followed by the Summer Sun Rye one of their seasonal brews. It has a 5.3% alcohol content but is still a little light for me. ESB the extra special Bitter was my favorite with a golden caramel color and just the right hint of hops and bitters. The fourth choice was the IPA and it had way too much back bite for me and we finished up with the Porter which has a wonderful chocolate color, a creamy head and a hint of banana, yes I said banana in the taste. It was very smooth indeed. Our final taste was the Hefeweizen and if you are a fan of the cloudy wheat beer this is a very good version.

You get to take your sampling glass home as a souvenir and if you want more there is a gift shop.

Before I start let me say that coming the second weekend of June was not the greatest idea in the world . Only a handful of the beautiful houses in Portsmouth were open. Most of them open in June but not until after mid-June. So much for great planning.

One that was open is the Governor John Langdon House. The House is open Friday through Sunday from 1 to 4pm with tours taking place on the hour. We arrived at 2:03 and the tour had already departed. We decided to move our car closer and take a walk in the garden. The rose arbor was still bare but the Peonies were in full bloom.

We became the 3pm tour when another family joined us and our guide Honey Springer. The House is owned and operated by the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities. Entrance is $6 unless you have a AAA card and then it becomes 2 for 1, which is a great deal.

John Langdon was born into an old New England family with humble origins. He made his money as a sea captain and merchant. He became a patriot when one of his ships was seized by the British. Nothing like a good hit in the wallet to bring out a mans patriotism. He became one of the committee of correspondence , a group of men who risked their lives spreading the news about the Revolution . He was also part of the raid on Fort William Henry. He was a major financial supporter of the Revolution stating that if the war was lost he was going to lose everything anyway. He actually came out of the War a wealthy and influential man and served three terms as Governor of New Hampshire as well as being one of the signers of the Constitution.

His home reflects this importance. A combination of Georgian and Federal architecture it has aspects of both. The Georgian carving was done by ship carvers and there is some very nice carving not only on the crown molding but on the fireplaces in the downstairs parlor and the assembly room. A sign of his growing importance is that George Washington visited here in 1809 and James Monroe in 1819. Lafayette may even have visited which would explain the fleur dis lys in the design of the Assembly room.

The house is lightly furnished with period antiques that were made in Portsmouth. Only the piano and the sideboard are original to the house. Though the dining set was made for the house in the 20th century.

The newer part of the house was designed by renowned New York architect Stanford White for Wentworth Langdon in the early 20th century. The tour only visits one room , the dining room from that addition.

The tour takes less than an hour, you will need to put show covers over your feet and photography is not allowed inside.