OUR FIRST NEW ENGLAND ROAD TRIP....

Hello Friends!

I'm so happy you stopped by.  I hope you are keeping warm and that you have had a wonderful weekend.  It seems that a lot of you are experiencing cold winter weather.  While we got some snow early in the morning, it has actually warmed up here today and is raining instead of snowing.  I might say that it is Global Warming.....but tell that to my friends in Chicago this weekend.  I think it's just some more of that wacky weather that we seem to get these days.

When we were in New Hampshire this summer on vacation, we took a day trip to the Maine seacoast and drove through Portsmouth, New Hampshire.  One look at this lovely city full of so much history and we knew that we simply had to come back for a visit.  Yesterday, we decided that our first adventure would definitely be to Portsmouth.   We were not disappointed....

I was so excited to be there that I could not even wait until we were out of the car before snapping the photos....hence the slight glare on the right side of some of the photos.

David had already scoped out the restaurant scene in Portsmouth ahead of time. According to the Portsmouth, NH website, the city is a leading contender for the title of the U.S. city with the most restaurants per capita.  I believe that.  There are so many restaurants that look so good there.  We definitely will have to go back often to try them all.   We decided  for our first trip to Portsmouth that we wanted to find the PORTSMOUTH GAS LIGHT CO.  

We had been reading about the city for some time online and this place just called our name.  The restaurant is housed in a beautiful historic building that dates back to 1837.  The building housed Portsmouth's first utility - the Portsmouth Gas Light Co. and survived the great fires the city experienced.  

The restaurant has street level seating with a menu that looks wonderful; but it was their Downtown Brick Oven Pizza and Pub that was our destination of choice.

We were a little unsure of parking and how we were going to find this restaurant before we actually got there.  There is 2 hour parking along the street; however, we knew that we would be in the area longer than that and moving our car every couple of hours was just not practical.  When we drove into town, we very easily located a parking garage for 75 cents an hour and proceeded to find our first stop.  We were very happy to walk out of the parking garage and see the above sign. We had parked just steps from the restaurant!

The Downtown Brick Oven Pizza and Pub is located on the lower level of the restaurant.   What a warm and cozy place it is there!

 

The antique brick, wood beams, stone foundation and a roaring fire in the stone hearth make this the warm and cozy spot to be in the building.

We had a few minutes to wait for our table so we found a nice spot by the fire and watched one of the large screen televisions that they had playing the Army/Navy game.

The menu looks fabulous and we saw many items that we were tempted to order including the special of the day - "Mr. Potato Head" - a white pizza topped with mashed potatoes, bacon and cheddar cheese.  What an interesting concept for a pizza!  We settled on the flagship pizza and what the menu calls by far their most popular specialty pizza - The Gaslight.   Sweet Italian Sausage, Pepperoni, Ricotta and Mozzarella.....how could we go wrong?

We didn't go wrong at all! 

 

The food was fabulous, the service was great (Thanks Jordan!) and we loved the atmosphere there.  I don't know how we will ever be able to try the other restaurants in the city when Portsmouth Gas Light Co. will be calling our name.  It will be a hard job...but we are up for the challenge! 

There is no better place to walk off a meal than this wonderful, historic city......

take some photographs while walking...

 

and do some shopping....

 

 

 

We will definitely be returning!

Thanks so much for stopping by to visit.  Wherever you are, I hope that you are happy and warm and spending time with those you love.

Have a great week!