Portsmouth is a small historic city that anchors New Hampshire's Seacoast Region. It was an important shipbuilding center during Colonial times and has many historic buildings dating from that era. Today it's a popular tourist spot and has a very nautical/maritime-y flavor to it. It is known for its decks along the waterfront with lots of outdoor eating and drinking options. It's only an hour drive from Boston up I-95 and I'd definitely recommend it if you're looking for a Boston area-daytrip.
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This is one of three bridges - Memorial Bridge - which link Portsmouth to Kittery, Maine
Another view of the bridge
Some of the newer developments in Portsmouth --
Prescott Park is a really cool waterfront park in Portsmouth. It hosts an Annual Arts Festival with lots of outdoors concerts/outdoor plays (photo taken pre-pandemic). You can see the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in the distance.
Another part of the park looking toward Portsmouth Naval Shipyard --
Prescott Park
Portsmouth has lots of breweries
Portsmouth has a private membership not-for-profit library you can join for $250 a year. One of a only a handful left in the country, it's an interesting place to explore with a lot of stuff on maritime history --
The South End of Portsmouth is a cool neighborhood to explore. It's a colonial-era neighborhood set on a series of inlets off the harbor.
Taken from the Memorial Bridge looking toward Downtown --
Portsmouth's best known landmark is the North Church--
Portsmouth has a lot of waterfront dining/drinking which I unfortunately did not photograph very well --
The Portsmouth Naval Shipyard
If you've ever wondered what the rest of New Hampshire's very tiny 18-miles of coastline are like, I'll leave with you some bonus shots from along that stretch of coastline --
Jenness State Beach in Rye, NH
North Hampton, NH along Route 1A which runs along the Coast
I drove up there during a break from a conference in Boston back in the 90s, and was totally surprised at all the midrise architecture in Portsmouth. It's a beautiful place. I wasn't able to spend more than about 3 hours there, so will have to return someday.
I like seeing the historic buildings, I guess this is the U.S. version of Europe in a way. The population is surprisingly small, but it looks great for a city of that size. I've spent some time in the adjacent southern Maine area years ago, and this is the type of landscape & character that I remember.
Great pictures! I finally had the chance to visit Portsmouth myself, a few years ago. It was a great small city. Kittery was also a nice little town.
Jeness State Beach looks more like your typical beach you'd find in the Mid-Atlantic, like the Jersey Shore. Were there things like a boardwalk and beach shops there? I hear Hampton Beach is the town most like Jersey Shore towns, or Ocean City, Maryland, etc.
Thanks for posting these here, smuttynose! But like I thought when I first saw them at AB, "What . . . no Hampton Beach?? You feel as though you already have enough tattoos, fireworks, and/or dispensary green brought in from Maine or Amesbury??"
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Originally Posted by Architype
I like seeing the historic buildings, I guess this is the U.S. version of Europe in a way. The population is surprisingly small, but it looks great for a city of that size. I've spent some time in the adjacent southern Maine area years ago, and this is the type of landscape & character that I remember.
Portsmouth itself is small, but there are probably close to 3 million people living within a 30-45 minute drive. Portsmouth is always packed. Just a little more north and you're in Old Orchard Beach and the rest of York County, Maine - just far enough from Boston to be less crowded outside of peak summer season. Or just a bit south and you're in Portsmouth's MA clone, Newburyport, which also tends to be a bit less crowded. NH obviously doesn't have much seaside real estate, so Portsmouth and Rye get extra attention.
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