Shopping in Portsmouth

Attrezzi's wooden doors open to reveal a panorama of wines, gourmet foods, and kitchen accessories. The two-story shop houses Riedel stemware, gourmet groceries, and Attrezzi's signature blends of pesto, and bottles of Attrezzi's red and white wines sit waiting inside its wine cellar.

The restaurant also hosts regularly scheduled wine tastings and wine-tasting classes at its wine bar, and chefs recite recipes and teach students how to skillfully juggle mixing bowls in cooking classes held in a state-of-the-art demonstration kitchen.

For over 25 years, Franklin Block Opticians' two resident eye doctors have pored over eyes, expeditiously filling precise prescriptions in their onsite lab. The staff, meanwhile, curates their frame selection with a keen eye for style, featuring designs from Dolce & Gabbana, Versace, and Armani that keep vision blur-free and adept at Italian accents.

Artisan clayworkers toil over Great Bay Pottery's ever-ready kilns crafting one-of-a-kind stoneware pottery, including sturdy floor vases, convenient serving dishes, and all manner of saucers for UFO hoaxing. Patient clients can watch as potters spin their new piece of practical decoration into existence and finish the piece to their specifications with painted and glazed designs in nautical, arboreal, or impressionistic themes, among many other options. For a small fee, the potters will inscribe any piece with a message for personalized gift giving.

Thanks to improper equipment and a lack of professional training, Nanci Grenier Boutet endured four years of splashes and bruises before she could reliably stand up on her surfboard. Nanci founded Aquaholics to save others from a similarly waterlogged fate, and it was not long before she began to make waves in Maine’s dedicated surfing community. Nestled in a space that once housed a church, her surf shop has earned local renown for its selection of quality wetsuits and beach gear available to rent or buy.

When Nanci and her staff aren’t outfitting wave riders with professional equipment, they take to the ocean themselves during year-round surf and paddleboard lessons. CPR-certified instructors coach boarders of all skill levels in private surf sessions or group classes capped at three students per instructor. Large parties can opt for abbreviated surf lessons with a less-structured approach that lends itself to mild mayhem. Alternatively, standup paddleboard lessons impart various techniques for mounting boards and steering clear of siren rap battles during guided tours of Maine’s waterways.

The sparkle of vintage glass, the gleam of fire-polished spherules, and the bright colors of custom lucite beads, these are the tantalizing sights that meet the eye of a shopper walking into The Beadin' Path. To wander through the store’s wealth of beads is to wander through time itself. The collection is known for its vintage beads, and shoppers pass lucite spherules made between the ’60s and ’80s, raw metals saved from warehouses, and glass from West Germany nestled alongside fire-polished Czech beads. The wealth of textures and hues fuels creative minds, inspiring crafters to pick up vintage U.S.-made metal baubles and gemstones for nestling on cords, wiring into earrings, or stapling to the mailman’s lapel. In addition to enriching beaders’ stockpiles, The Beadin' Path also acquaints them with simple and advanced jewelry-making techniques during classes whose subjects range from wrapping leather to knotting pearls.