Wonderful Suffolk

We have also had another little holiday in the caravan recently. I should have updated this sooner so it was fresh in my memory. There are parts of Suffolk that I know reasonably well and parts which were entirely new to me. We have visited the historical towns / villages of Lavenham, Long Melford, Bury St Edmunds before. I have spent a fair bit of time in Constable country as the villages are on the Essex/ Suffolk border - Dedham, East Bergholt, Flatford Mill etc. ---

But the stunning Suffolk Coast has been a revelation to me. I expected Lowestoft to be a carbon copy of tatty, tacky seaside towns like Great Yarmouth and Clacton but, to my surprise, I was blown away by the 'class' of the sea front in the town (well, I didn't go shopping or tour the housing estates). The whole place was spotlessly clean, freshly painted and was thankfully lacking in the usual row on row of Amusement arcades, followed by tatty fairground rides. As far as I would tell - the only amusements were on the pier and the few fairground rides we saw were well presented and traditional (traditional carousel with 'gallopers', helter skelter etc). We had soem fantastic fish & chips too & the beach was lovely soft golden sand.

Next revelation was Southwold. Who wouldn't want to live in a gorgeous 'time-warp' seaside town that also boasts one of the finest breweries on the East Coast?

And then Walberswick... I'm not sure how much we missed of Walberswick, it seems to be a tiny village with (at first glance) not much there except quaint houses & fishermans shacks. Apparently it's home to a plethora of writers, artists and actors. We had a very good, although pretty pricey lunch at the main pub / inn in the village and used the opportunity to sample about 5 Adnams ales between us! The scenery is quite captivating and then you look accross their salt marsh to the large dune and realise that they have a lovely beach too. Walberswick is also home to a national Crab fishing championship. We were there 2 days too early to take part, but I can see why it would be popular with competition crabbers. We caught 79 crabs in a couple of hours and had great fun.