As mentioned, we’ve been away to Deal in Kent. It’s a nice town: small, but big enough to have shops. Nice enough to not be full of pound shops, but not up it’s own arse. A decent (if shingle) beach, a pier, restaurants and pubs, and a railway station make it a good base. There’s also a lot of pubs, some of which we visited.
It made a nice change, and for us struck that elusive balance: It’s nicer than Walsall, with decent shops (and a decent balance of small individual ones and normal shops, without there being a delicatessen selling nothing but olives), but not too la-di-dah for us proles.
The cottage was, unusually, Friday-Friday, so after braving the M25 etc, including the Dartford crossing (which seems to work clockwise, but not anti-clockwise), we found ourselves on a seafront, drinking beer, by 4:30pm on a Friday in glorious sunshine.
In between pubs, we fitted in some sightseeing: Dover, Deal, and Walmer castles, Sandwich, Worth, Hearne Bay (nice), Whitsable (a bit twee for me), Margate (somewhat shabby).
It’s a lovely part of the country. Pictures to follow…
Kent is excellent we found. Much more scenic than you’d think as most of the time you are passing through to get to the continent. We did a similar itinerary some years ago and thorough enjoyed it, even though the weather was cr*p.
Did you get to Reculver?
We didn’t. We got tired of using the car: We only used it on one day and didn’t enjoy it, using the train mostly.
We had *glorious* weather… sorry.