Portsmouth, New Hampshire

On Saturday, September 15 we headed out for Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  Hampton was at the most southern point of New Hampshire's coastline and Portsmouth is at the most northern point of the New Hampshire coastline and it takes us 25 minutes to get there.  Portsmouth is a beautiful town with a population of 21,000 right on the harbor.  The town was originally settled in 1630.  The downtown market square is very pretty and bustling with lots of shops, bakeries and coffee shops.  The town had a big fire in 1813 and all the buildings were rebuilt of brick with slate roofs in the federalist style. 

We enjoyed walking around looking in the shops and the old buildings and gardens.  We stopped for a scone and an americano at one of the coffee shops on the square.  The North Church was very pretty. 

We had lunch at a place called Popovers.  Popovers were their specialty.  I had a sandwich and a salad served in a popover that was broken open.  I should have taken a photo of it, but it was so good I gobbled it up in no time.  For breakfast, they served popovers with a maple syrup butter.  

After lunch, we wandered around Prescott Park overlooking the harbor.  It was a beautiful sunny day and was a very popular place.  

We saw them taking an odd-looking sailing boat through the harbor.  Later after I took the photo, we saw it under sail.  We found out later it was a gundalow, which is a shallow-draft boat that was used to work the waterways in this area.