Day Two - Southwold, Blythburgh, Dunwich and Aldeburgh - 12 May

We had a wonderful, sunny day touring the coast of East Anglia. Tomas was the driver today, Henk was the navigator, Liz the cultural advisor and I had a thoroughly enjoyable day taking it all in. We headed east from Diss to the seaside resort of Southwold and walked along the esplanade beside the colourful beach houses with their little verandahs.

They are apparently expensive to buy and are the size of about three toilets inside! We peeped inside some of them and they had a little kitchen, chairs and not very much else except a good view over the beach. Most had named their beach house and some were quite amusing.

We drove south to Southwold Harbour, the flat marshes to the south and then headed to a sophisticated High Street where we had trouble deciding which tea room we would go to as there were quite a number of choices. We finally settled on a cosy one with bunting around the room. Bunting seems to be popping up everywhere and shopwindows are being decorated in preparation for the Queen’s Jubilee celebrations.

We all liked Southwold very much. Liz was keen to visit the Holy Trinity Church at Blythburgh to see the backless benches with their carvings of Deadly Sins. Sloth was in bed and Hypocrisy was praying with his eyes open.

It was very much worth the visit as the church is quite different from most churches with an air of simplicity and openness. From the church we walked down a pretty lane to the Dutch-gabled White Hart Inn for a late lunch overlooking the estuary of the Blythe River. Following lunch we drove a short distance south to Dunwich as Tomas was keen to see the seaside town before it is completely swallowed up by the sea.

There was very little left and it was very calm standing on the stony beach unlike what we have seen on occasions on television as a building topples over the cliff. From Dunwich we moved further south to the impressive seaside town of Aldeburgh the home of the composer Benjamin Britten. We walked the length of the esplanade to Martello Tower as it was a lovely sunny afternoon returning through a busy high street.

At five o’clock we decided we had a great day touring down the coastline but it was time to drive back to Diss which was about an hour away and call it a day. We rang the highly recommended Indian take-away and had a delivery of some tasty curries. Tomorrow will be closer to home visiting Bungay and Beccles.