Our Valentine Getaway choices for this year were severely limited due to restrictions for the pandemic. My first choice would have been to go to the Essex Inn.....a place we've been to and enjoyed several times. But, Vermont wasn't allowing NH residents to come visit, so I was forced to find someplace in NH that would fit my criteria. Namely, it must have a pool and hot tub. After careful consideration, I chose the Common Man Inn and Spa in Plymouth, NH.
Normally, I would have booked us for the weekend, but the other criteria for our weekends away is that there must be fun stuff to see and do in the area. Not much happening in Plymouth, NH! But the place has the requisite pool and hot tub, so that's where we decided to go for just one night.
An important consideration is always food....as in, I don't have to cook it! We left Saturday morning and stopped up the road in Londonderry at the Bacon Barn. We had never been there before...I can't imagine why. Because it was a cute hole-in-the-wall sort of place, which suits us just fine. The food was absolutely delicious! Belgian Waffle with blueberries for Hubby, bacon eggs benedict for me.
After our yummy breakfast, we headed north. Originally we were planning to go to the Christa McCauliffe Planetarium in Concord. They were re-opening that day after being closed for massive renovations. I had bought tickets and everything - then got an email saying they decided to move their opening date to March 5. Hell and damnation!!! There isn't a heck of a lot of places that are open right now, but I found the NH Guild of Craftsmen had a place on Main St. in Concord, so we went there.
Believe it or not, I have been living in NH for 37 years, and I have never seen the State House in Concord. So it was fun to do a little sight-seeing.
The Artists Guild was a bit of a disappointment....same old stuff we'd seen at many other places. But Hubby remembered a record store he'd been to (of course!) so we stopped in there for a short visit.
Continuing north, I felt like it wasn't possible to be in that area without going to the Chaos and Kindness Store in Laconia. We had a a little fun there and Hubby bought me a new shirt.
From there we made it up to Plymouth. We got to the room about 3pm . Everything in the place was made from wood....very rustic and lots of doo-dads to see.
We immediately hit the pool and hot-tub. It was described to us as being "first-come, first-serve", meaning if there was someone else in the area, we'd have to wait. Luckily for us, when we got there a family with a young child was just leaving the pool area. We swam for a while and some young men came in to use the hot tub. When we noticed they were sitting on the edge because they were too hot, we offered to switch with them and we had our turn in the hot tub.
For dinner, we went to the Italian Farmhouse, which is owned by the Common Man. I was worried about us getting in since it was the Saturday night before Valentine's Day, and rightly so. The wait was an hour....unless we wanted to sit at a high-top table in the bar? Sure, why not! We had drinks and a lovely meal. The food at the Common Man is always excellent.
Back to the Inn and back in the pool and hot tub! This time no one was around so we stayed as long as we wanted.
For breakfast in the morning they offered an Continental breakfast with one hot dish. I was disappointed that it was the typical hotel breakfast with cold scrambled eggs. We usually don't bother with hotel breakfasts, but I had another plan for lunch and didn't want to ruin our appetites anyway.
We did, however, sit in the little living room with the fireplace and we played chess on this most unusual chess board! (I won!)
We left the inn and went a little further north to Moltonborough, where they have the oldest continuously running country store in the country. The place was huge, with room after room of stuff.
Pickle barrels.....both sour and dill.
Wood stove warming the place up.
Cabinet made into a cooler for drinks.
And from there we went to Meredith to have lunch at Hart's Turkey Farm. This restaurant lived up to its good name. We had a delicious lunch with home-made mashed potatoes and some amazing butternut squash. We thought about spending some time in Meredith because they have a sculpture walk in the downtown area, but it was very cold out. So we decided to save that for another, warmer time!
It was a lovely Valentine's Day with my sweetheart!
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