Mini Pub Crawl

Last Wednesday it was cloudy, chilly, and I was down in the dumps. I had been stuck in all day and missing home, so when Andy got home from work, wanting to make me happy, decided what I needed was to get out. There are tons of pubs right down the street from us in Old Town Poole. Andy looked at me and said, "Get up, get dressed, we are going out!" and we set off for a pub crawl around Poole!

The first pub we stopped in, literally only a two minute walk, if even, from our front door was the King's Head. We stepped in, got a pint of ale and thought, "hmmmm this isn't going to be our local pub, nice but not for us". While we were drinking our beers, we felt as if we were in an old lady's living room. The walls are fashioned with a cream and gold floral pattern wall paper and the seats are old rose plush with quite a bit of unknown stains. Andy sat on those while I decided, for my clothes sake, to sit on the wood chair across from him. It even smelled of stale roses and moth balls! As we laughed at the state of the pub and finished our English ales we gathered our coats and headed to our next pub!

Next on the list was The Foundry Arms. I liked it before we even stepped foot in the door. The thatch roof pub was at the end of the street lit up with old time street lamps looking like we had gone back in time. When we walked it it kept the same old feel with dim lights and low wood-beamed ceilings. We went to the bar to order our ale and cider when the bartender told us this pub was one of the oldest buildings in Poole dating back to the 14th or 15th century. It was much bigger, connecting to the building across the street, now the Poole Museum, and has been a merchants house, an inn for travelers and housed a number of families. He told us the upstairs is most like the original building. As he said this my face lit up thinking of all the history of just this one building and he asked it we wanted to see it. Umm duh, yes of course we do!!! It was a small banquet room covered in old dark wood and a huge fireplace at both ends. We were told it can be rented out for events and dinners (FUN!) and on the weekends a live band plays. I can't wait for that night out! He then gave us a book on Poole and it's history to look at as we had our drinks!

Our next stop was on the Quay. We headed into The Portsmouth Hoy. This was the best one yet! From the minute you walk in it has that warm feel of a small pub filled with people laughing, drinking and eating. It felt perfect! And to make it even better at the table across from the bar was a family having dinner with their border collie laying on the floor next to them! I can't wait to take my border collie to the pubs with me as I cozy up next to the fire drinking cider!! We sat down and decided this was out favorite pub in Poole. Nestled across from the harbor in between two other pubs and only a three minute walk home through cobble stoned allyways, this was going to be our local pub!

On the way home we went into one more pub called the Angle. This was the first pub I went to in Poole. It is next to the town hall and old church. This was our local, as Andy says, until our little pub crawl and the discovery of The Portsmouth Hoy. We drank our beers and I couldn't help but think how lucky I was to have Andy! When you are feeling blue he takes you out on a Pub Crawl!!