Plymouth Hotels

Book a Plymouth hotel and navigate the cobbles of the Elizabethan Barbican district. Take a dip in the Art Deco Tinside Lido overlooking the Sound where Sir Francis Drake embarked to the New World or cut some shapes at the only ice disco for miles around.

Plymouth neighbourhoods

Most visitors spend a good deal of their time around Plymouth Hoe, where Drake finished his game of bowls before setting off to defeat the Spanish Armada. As Beatles fans will know – see the famous Hoe shot of the Fab Four – the views are spectacular across the Sound. You can take an al fresco dip at the Art Deco Tinside Lido here too. North of Hoe Park is the Elizabethan Barbican area, mercifully spared by the Luftwaffe’s bombs, and Sutton Pool. Head up Armada Way from Hoe Park for the civic heart of Plymouth with its malls, museums and galleries.

Shopping in Plymouth

Plymouth has some of the best shopping in the South West. The Drake Circus Shopping Centre at the end of Cornwall Street provides big-name retailers, but there are loads of individual little shops and stalls in the area around City Market and Barbican. It’s known as the West End’s Independent Quarter and is a breath of fresh air, whether you want fish fresh from the Sound or that one-off T-shirt no one else has.

Eating and drinking in Plymouth

The best place to head for a top-notch choice of fine dining restaurants is the cobbled Barbican area edging the harbour. Being close both to Dartmoor and the sea, Plymouth has traditional English produce like dressed lobster and locally reared beef in spades, and the city’s pub food reflects this with mouth-watering menus. As you’d expect from this salty seadog of a city, home to the world’s oldest gin distillery, traditional British ale houses are 10 a penny, but summertime waterside drinking at the harbour is particularly popular.

Culture and nightlife in Plymouth

Book a Plymouth hotel and you’re just as likely to see Dizzee Rascal rock the mic as the Strictly team cutting a rug at the Plymouth Pavilions. At the Theatre Royal, dramas like Eurydice sit happily alongside the Birmingham Royal Ballet. The Barbican Theatre puts on slightly more esoteric stuff like illusion theatre and Bollywood dancing.

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