DISTANCE: 2 miles (3.25km)
TIME: a full day
START: Strawbery Banke museum
END: John Paul Jones house
POINTS TO NOTE: Most of Portsmouth’s sights are only open from June to mid-October. C&J (www.ridecj.com) runs a bus service (1.5 hours) between Boston and Portmouth’s transit centre, off I-95, from where a trolley bus (www.coastbus.org) will take you into town. Portland, Maine, is 52 miles (84km) north via I-95.
Standing at the mouth of the Piscataqua River, and graced with a superb natural harbor, Portsmouth is the nation’s third-oldest English settlement. Much of its 400-year history has been lovingly preserved in the downtown area, peppered with historic houses and their attendant gardens. Its many delicious dining options also make the compact town a fine destination for gourmets.
Portsmouth is sited on the Piscataqua River
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Strawberry Banke
Pull into Hancock Street and park in front of the Strawbery Banke Museum 1 [map] (Marcy Street; tel: 603-433-1100; http://strawberybanke.org; May–Oct daily 10am–5pm). This urban quarter of 42 preserved houses is Portsmouth’s highlight. The English named their 1623 colony for the profusion of wild strawberries that greeted them; today, the 10-acre (4ha) living history museum tells the story of the city’s oldest neighborhood from 1650 to 1950. Costumed guides and artisans make barrels and pottery, tend the lovely gardens, and keep up lively repartee in such roles as an immigrant Jewish woman from 1919. Dine later at the Figtree Kitchen Café at Strawbery Banke (for more information, click here).
Prescott Park
It is hard to believe that the genteel area of pretty cottages around Strawbery Banke was once Portsmouth’s red light district. The efforts of the local Prescott sisters helped clean the area up, and it is for them that the nearby riverside Prescott Park 2 [map] is named. The Prescott Park Arts Festival (www.prescottpark.org) is held here every summer.
Strawbery Banke
Kindra Clineff
Historic houses
Just south are two of Portsmouth’s many historic house museums: Wentworth-Gardner House and Tobias Lear House 3 [map] (50 Mechanic Street; tel: 603-436-4406; http://wentworthlear.org; late May–mid-Oct Thu–Mon 11am–4pm). In the former, a 1760 structure facing the Piscataqua River, are photographs by Wallace Nutting, a founder of the Colonial Revival movement. Nearby is Geno’s Chowder & Sandwich Shop, see 1 [map].
Walk back past Prescott Park and turn left on Daniel Street to view the 1716 Warner House 4 [map] (No. 150; tel: 603-436-5909; www.warnerhouse.org; June–mid-Oct Wed–Mon 11am–4pm). This was the first of Portsmouth’s many brick houses, and sports a stairwell decorated with an array of early 18th-century murals.
Tugboat in the harbor
Kindra Clineff
Old warehouses transformed into restaurants and boutiques line Bow Street leading around to Market Street, where you will find the Moffatt-Ladd House and Garden 5 [map] (No. 54; tel: 603-436-8221; www.moffattladd.org; 1-hour tours June–mid-Oct, Mon–Sat 11am–5pm, Sun 1–5pm), an imposing three-story Georgian mansion topped with a captain’s walk and graced with terraced English-style gardens.
Walk south along Market Street, turn right on Congress Street and left on Middle Street. More pretty gardens front the John Paul Jones House 6 [map] (No. 43; tel: 603-436-8420; www.portsmouthhistory.org; late-May–mid-Oct daily 11am–5pm). The Revolutionary War naval hero once rented a room here.
Just on State Street is Rockingham House, where the treaty ending the 1905 Russo-Japanese War was signed (it now houses The Library Restaurant, for more information, click here).
Food and drink
1 Geno’s Chowder and Sandwich Shop
177 Mechanic Street; tel: 603-427-2070; www.genoschowder.com; Mon–Sat 11am–4pm; $
This whitewashed, riverside cottage dishes up fish chowder and lobster rolls.