UK Trip Day 6 Suffolk & Norfolk coast

Oh I do like to be beside the seaside

John and I drove off early this morning towards the Suffolk coast. Barb had never been there before and even John had only seen bits and pieces.

It took us less than two hours to arrive at Sutton Hoo. This is the site where an Anglo Saxon ship was found buried in a field in the 1930s. The excavation revealed a huge cache of artefacts from around 600AD.  We arrived at 9am and parked up to tour the facility. The door was open, but the lady who worked there said the actual opening time was 1030 and we should come back then. Uh ... no. Moving on ....

We then stopped off to see Snape Maltings on our way to Aldeburgh. This is a collection of old malt house buildings that have been turned into shops and cafes and a concert hall (think Aldeburgh Festival and Benjamin Britten). Again nothing open .... even though they advertised a breakfast menu at the café!  Just how late do people get going here?  It wasn't a complete waste of time to look around here, though. There was a Henry Moore sculpture of "A Reclining Figure" in the park beside the theatre. Barb is happy.
 

From there we drove only a few miles to the Suffolk seaside at Aldeburgh. This is a rather sleepy fishing village and a bit tired in appearance. We went down on the beach which was a shingle (not sand) shore. It wasn't too comfortable to sit on .... best to BYO chair.  John enjoyed looking at the old wooden fishing boat and the much newer life boat. We then tried to find somewhere for a late breakfast. Not an easy find. Not the right season for breakfast.

We drove a little further down the beachside road and found the stainless steel seashell sculpture on the beach dedicated to Benjamin Britten. It sits all alone on the shingle and I imagine it must look quite spectacular at sunrise.

 On our way to Southwold (another seaside town) we detoured off the road to have a look at Leiston Abbey which we'd noticed on the map. This was a rather wonderful old ruin. We wandered happily around it and there was only one other couple and their little dog there with us, so we could really take our time and enjoy the experience. Best of all it was free!

Southwold turned out to be quite gorgeous. Barb was delighted to see long rows of multi-coloured beach chalets lining the shore as well as a quintessential seaside pier complete with its tacky tourist  tat, games parlour, ice-cream parlour and people promenading the deck and fishing off the end of the pier. All completely wonderful!

It was still only lunch time, so we headed north  towards Great Yarmouth in Norfolk to have a look at Somerleyton Hall, one of the top twenty stately homes and gardens according to Barb's National Trust research. Perhaps she should have paid more attention to opening times .... when we pulled into the driveway we were confronted with a big CLOSED sign. It's only open Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays (this was Friday) Bum!  Just not our day.

Never mind, the drive across the Norfolk Broads was very picturesque.  Lots of old windmills and farms with horses, cattle, pigs (a LOT of pigs) or sheep. We regained the A11 and it was a quick run down to home, all the Bank Holiday weekend traffic was fortunately heading in the opposite direction to us. A small win for the day.