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The Unique Village Of Clovelly
Venturing out of Cornwall and up to the north Devon coast, we take in the self-proclaimed “unique” village of Clovelly, knowing of its beautiful setting but knowing little else about it. We are in for a treat. The first thing which strikes us as “unique” is that we have to pay to get in to the village! At first we are a little baulked by having to fork out £8.25 each just to enter, but once we see Clovelly and learn about its status it all becomes clear and we don’t begrudge a penny of it. Clovelly is perched on a seemingly almost vertical slope, cascading from clifftop to shingle…
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If It’s In Your Heart…
It seems just about impossible that my first trip to Padstow was over forty years ago, in 1979 in fact. Since then I have visited Cornwall, and Padstow, so many times that I couldn’t even hazard a guess, but I do know that it’s a very long time since the little harbour town, the surrounding Camel Estuary and the wonderful Atlantic coastline found its way into my soul. When a place gets you like that, it rarely leaves you. To this day, over 42 years later, I still give an excited shout as we cross the boundary into Cornwall, and get a sense of joy as we pass the signs…
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Framlingham Castle
If someone asks you to name ten English castles, our guess is that unless you live in Suffolk, you won’t have Framlingham on your list. Certainly we didn’t know much about it and only stumbled on it this week whilst fitting in a last minute visit to Michaela’s Mum before we head off to Greece, yet it turned out to be an interesting destination. Like many of England’s castles, Framlingham was granted to and confiscated from the gentry in equal measure depending on whether the monarch required the support of the local barons. As it happens, this was the sum total of any conflict seen at Framlingham: its walls were otherwise…
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Ramsgate Tunnels
In these last few days as we allow ourselves to get excited about our prospects of making it to Greece, we enjoy trips to a couple more destinations in England, both of them slightly out of the ordinary. The first of these is Ramsgate Tunnels. The port of Ramsgate, less than 20 miles from our home in Kent, has a rich maritime and wartime history including being, as we have posted before, part of the amazing “little ships” story from WW2. Tucked around the corner from the harbour, hidden now by the new hotel and apartment complex currently under construction which will further enhance the quickly developing seafront, lie the…
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St Albans: Romans, Saints & Boudicca
With no opportunity to leave these shores just yet, we continued our exploration of our own country this week with a brief visit to Hertfordshire, centred on time in St Albans, an ancient city steeped in fascinating history. After a motorway closure made our journey somewhat tortuous we rolled into St Albans around lunchtime and set about exploring a city with some of England’s most dramatic history. St Alban the man was a religious martyr executed on the spot which today houses the cathedral, itself originally an abbey which was ransacked and all but destroyed by Henry VIII’s men during the Reformation. From a distance, the wide central tower of…
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Nostalgia Trip #8: Peak District Weekend
The long drive from Aberaeron to our next destination at Ashford-in-the-Water in the Peak District takes us over the Welsh mountains and around Shrewsbury and Stoke and turns into a fairly tortuous journey with precious few major roads. It’s only 180 miles but it takes five hours. It’s fitting that this prettiest of Derbyshire villages should be our base for the weekend, and even more fitting that our planned walks include a hike through Monsal Dale. Growing up in Mickleover, on the edge of the city of Derby but within easy reach of the Peak, it was a common feature of my childhood to take off for weekend family walks…
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Cornwall Calling
We aren’t yet in a position to organise any foreign trips but with COVID restrictions easing we can at least now travel within the UK and so tomorrow we head off down to Cornwall, where we will be based in Padstow for the next ten days. We are fortunate enough to own a property in Padstow itself, which we rarely get to visit in high season as in normal times it is used as a holiday let to provide some income in our retirement, but this year we are so starved of travel that we’ve snaffled a few weeks for our own use – in fact we will be there…
