Is Plymouth the “Best Night” Great Britain? I made a pub -Crawl to find out

A sign in the Minerva Inn warns Punters that Plymouth’s oldest pub can contain “nuts”.

“You want that, right?” Says the regular Graham Bennie, a dockworker in a deep purple t-shirt. “You don’t want normal people. How many plastic pubs do we have now? This is a real sailor in which people actually talk to each other.”

I came to a pub that crawls in Plymouth and – for the surprise of many people – voted the best night in the country. The oldest inn in the city seemed to be a good starting point. Sex farm By Spinal Tap plays on the Jukebox when I go.

While the Backstreet Pub fills with workers from the cow-off-off this Friday afternoon, the locals discuss the merits of Pink Floyd’s later edition and, which is even more important, where I should go next. The dolphin wins the referendum.

After analyzing the number of pubs, bars and clubs, the costs of a beer, the costs of a taxi and the security index assessment of the most populated cities of Britain, Plymouth is highest. Its attraction has more than these metrics, as I should discover.

The art of drinking

I go to the Kai, through the pretty Barbican area, which survived the Plymouth Blitz, into the small blue and white pub. There, the salty Sea Dog Ricky Matthew’s afternoon drinker with Hemingway-like stories about wrestling sea animals.

Blue sharks, tuna – he snaps into it, marks them on behalf of science before setting them free.

“Are you struggling?” Asks one of the bartender how someone quotes lines from Jaw. “Oh yes,” he says. “You have to buckle up.”

Matthews only takes sharks with marking tourists to swim with them through his company Plymouth Marine Safari. The blufin tuna will soon be here, he expects; The birds told him.

“The Shearwaters have appeared and the Shearwater always arrives two weeks before the tuna,” he says, to nod the agreement of the colleague and the drinking buddy Robby Robson. “You just know.”

Matthews and Robson are men who live after the rhythms of the sea – and sometimes the sea tells them that they are supposed to make a pint. “This is what you do – get off the boat and go to the pub,” he says.

Barkeper Aine Dalton says that the dolphin – recently was appointed one of the 500 best pubs of the telegraph in England – was “always a fishing pub”. Open from 10 a.m. for those who come from the night boats, it serves directly from the barrel and has a piano, but no heating; Only a stove that gather around piano like the piano in winter. It is also a wet pub; No gastric price here.

“People bring dishes from home and divide them up what is very nice,” says Irish landlord Michelle Chambers-Hague. “It’s just a real community pub.”

The photos of fishing boats, deceased locals and “Best Pub in Plymouth” certificates on the walls include beryl cooks immediately recognizable prints. The cheeky scenes of the deceased artist in Great Britain with their plump, colorful characters are a staple in the pub, but the dolphin shows them with a certain pride: Cook was regular here; The Boozer inspired her work.

“She came up a few times a week and just sat down and sketched,” says Chambers-Hague and interrupted to greet the regular guests. “She was a beautiful woman, a small, petite woman, and her husband was also a gene.”

A city that was kidnapped with the sea

With a view of the harbor, the dolphin is an anchor point for drinkers in “Britain’s Ocean City”. This is not just a hollow marketing slogan: maybe nowhere in Great Britain has a stronger connection to the sea than Plymouth. The city is home to the largest naval base in the country, a busy ferry port, a considerable fishing fleet and a university that specializes in marine biology and is involved with the ocean.

“However, my favorite activity in the history of Plymouth is that the saying” Up s — creek “comes from here,” says the manager of the Delfins, Lauren Pinkham, a marine biologist. “There was a stream that through the city to a Navy Hospital and it stank, and if they hurt him, they probably didn’t come back, so they were on S — Creek.”

The pints slide slightly in dolphin. I resist the urge for another and enter the sun in the late afternoon. Many ships have set off from Plymouth to conquer new countries, especially the Mayflower, which brought the pilgrims to America. The departure point is reminded of a port of port of the Mayflower levels opposite the pub.

I follow the street south and watch yachts bob in the harbor and go the same paving stones as Francis Drake. His galleon, the golden Hind, also left Plymouth when he circumnavigated the globe, during which his crew put a record treasure stage (more than £ 122 million in today’s money) from the Spaniard.

The street surrounds the high walls of the Royal Citadels and climbs to a rocky land zone, where canons point over the shimmering Plymouth sound towards another old enemy, France. The families of ice cream and the view are enjoying on the clientop, since a cross channel ferry ferry the Lido-Lido-Lido, a pretty Art Deco swimming pool that protrudes into the sea.

The nearby Hoe Park is busy that Prymothianer gather for Picnknicks at the end of the week around Smeaton’s Tower, a red and white lighthouse. Only most prefer not to be called Plymothian.

“We are Janners,” says Mark Robinson, a sales employee who drinks outside the arms of the fisherman. “We even have a song -the Janner song -what is like our national anthem. They play it up the argyle [Home Park, Plymouth Argyle FC’s ground] Before a game. It brings me a tear into my eye. “

The song is a Paean to Plymouth, a celebration of the community spirit and local pride. “It is a friendly city that is relaxed,” says Robinson, proof of this.

Combat interview

However, the nearby Union Street was a different story. “It was the most rough place in the world,” tells me Chris Steinhausen, a retired marine diver and cousin of the late local football legend Trevor Francis, tells me. “The Marines and the Navy have scattered there. It was very fighting. To be honest, I loved it earlier.”

“Plymouth has changed a lot,” says Robinson. “It is more civilized here now; money comes down.” The city’s cultural stock has certainly increased, with attractions such as The Box, an award -winning museum and art gallery.

I end my pint and the track back over the Barbican, which is suddenly another animal. The iron families have disappeared and replaced by DJs, mixing melodies to young drinkers outside the water.

Plymouth is a banging evening, confirms Dave Stuart, a flake from Scotland who sells vapes from an old telephone box. “It’s a funny city,” he says, “especially during the pirate weekend [in May]When everyone dresses up as pirates. “

When I applied for the advice of a girl I met with the fisherman, I go to the Royal William Yard to defeat my hangover the next morning. The former class I navy depot in the home of Bougie Waterside Flats, restaurants and work rooms is busy with paddle boarders and other people who meet healthier lifestyles than I do.

I am inspired by a session at Halogi, a sauna and ice pool experience. “There is nothing better to beat a hangover,” says manager Aislininn Wenham when I slipped into the cold water.

“Plymouth has so much to offer,” she says, while flirting with hypothermia. “I love living here, but it has a publicity problem. It is underestimated.”

It is difficult to agree. She is certainly right with the hangover; That’s gone. I check the time. It’s before noon. The dolphin will be open.