Photo: IIP Photo Archive / CC BY-SA 2.0 · source
Portsmouth packs a working port, a 1600s street plan and a dense restaurant row into a downtown you can cross on foot in fifteen minutes. Roughly 22,000 people live here on the Piscataqua River, where the tide runs hard enough that the Moran tugs earn their keep turning ships toward the naval shipyard. Market Square is the hinge, with the Music Hall a block off, Prescott Park along the water, and brick sidewalks that buckle in interesting ways. Strawbery Banke fills close to ten acres of the old Puddle Dock neighborhood with more than 30 buildings on their original foundations, furnished to eras from the 1690s to the 1950s. New Hampshire's ocean coast runs under 20 miles, so for open shoreline, drive a few miles south to Odiorne Point State Park in Rye, where WWII bunkers sit above tide pools. The historic houses close for winter, and downtown garages fill by late morning in summer and October.
Others worth the drive in New Hampshire.
