June 22-24. LGW-IST-KUL-ADL

Traveling again. But our flight wasn't until nearly 6pm, do hurry up and wait. We mostly sat around all morning. Well, I did, while Lynn finished packing. Then early afternoon we were driven to Gatwick, went through the various queues, then sat around for a few hours. Then more queues into the gate and onto the plane. 

Fortunately the first flight was relatively brief,around three and a half hours. Though when we landed we were taxiing for at least 20 minutes. Istanbul is a seriously big airport, but apparently not big enough: the plane stopped in the middle of nowhere and we were bussed to a terminal.

More plane seatbelts now have a sash strap that you pull down and clip on for takeoff and landing. I'm torn - I appreciate it cars they make seatbelts much safer, but in planes they're very annoying and I don't remember to ever put them on until told. I assume smart people have decided they make a difference, though it's hard to imagine in (and I prefer not to imagine it while sitting on a plane).

The leg from Istanbul to KL was the longest of the trip, around 10 hours. But we slept for maybe half of it (it's hard to keep track of the time) and it was pretty comfortable. As Dad predicted, it wove a path below Ukraine and above Iraq.

You might need to compare that with a map to make sense of it, the borders in that region are pretty complicated.

So I'll finish here, sitting in KL airport waiting for our final flight home.

June 21. Fordwich

We're officially in a heatwave, whatever that means, with the temperature around 30 degrees today. Our only excursion, and the last of our whole trip, was to Fordwich. That's the smallest town in England, ie smallest place with a town hall and council. The hall is a nice little building, about 500 years old.

Fordwich Town Hall

But our reason for visiting was to go out to lunch. The Fordwich Arms sits on the river, which is nice on a day like today, and has a Michelin star.

Trout with smoked butter and jalapeno granita

By the River Stour

June 20. Herne Bay

 In which nothing happens.

June 19. Birchington-on-Sea

 There's a heat wave on at the moment, with temperatures in the mid twenties. There's been a health alert issued. It is actually a bit of a problem; all the houses here are made to capture and retain heat. Despite them actually having some warm weather each year, this seems to catch the English unprepared and they have no way to manage it. People don't have air conditioning and the best they can do is usually open the windows.

Really very little happened today. We went to Quex Park, which is a manor house nearby, walked around the grounds and had a drink in the cafe. That was about it. Otherwise it was sorting things out and starting to pack for the trip home.

Quex House

June 18. South Again

This morning we packed up and started heading south again. Our first stop, an hour a way, was Bury St Edmunds. This turned out to be a pleasant mid-sized town with some sort of market running in the narrow high street. We mainly walked around the medieval abbey ruins and somewhat-more-recent St Edmundbury Cathedral.

Our next stop was just on the outskirts of Bury - another stately home. Ickworth is set in enormous gardens and it's an odd, neo-classical style with a huge cupola in the central building and then curving corridors to each wing. The upper floors were well-maintained and full of paintings. The lower level was an interesting re-creation of the servants' area.

From there we drove down to London, back across the Dartford Crossing, to the Bluewater shopping centre. We were there a couple of hours, in Marks and Spencer and having something to eat. The the final our or so through Kent to reach Herne Bay in the early evening.

June 17. Norfolk Broads

This morning we ventured across the river into the wilds of Norfolk. Specifically, the Broads, which really start from Beccles where we're staying. It's really just a network of rivers across a flat plain, and in 45 minutes we came to the northern side of the region because, like most things in England, it's not that big.

We started by visiting the ruins of St Benet's Abbey. This was a big complex a thousand years ago... now it's a ruin in a cow pasture with an 18thC windmill built in the old gatehouse.

From there we drove to the village of Potter Heigham and we hired a small boat for 2 hours to motor up and down the River Thurne. It had a painfully loud diesel motor unless you stuck your head above the cabin, and its top speed was about 5mph which was also the speed limit. We puttered through the river with tall reeds on either side - like Dedham a couple of days ago, boats are not a good way to see the landscape. We passed Thurne windmill and avoided some swans that were either inquisitive or threatening, depending on your interpretation.

Throttle at full speed

Beware of Swans

Thurne Mill

When we had returned the boat and our ears had recovered we drove to Wroxham, a village in the middle of the Broads, and walked around. Then circled back to Beccles.

June 16.Suffolk Coast

 Today we continued our whirlwind tour of Suffolk, checking out of Hintlesham and heading east towards the coast. Our first stop was Sutton Hoo. Short version - the wealthy owner in the 20's hired a man to explain the hummocks on her property. They turned out to be a graveyard and one contained the 1400 year-old remains of a wooden boat (mostly just the iron rivets) used as the grave of an Anglo-Saxon king and his valuables.

A high perspective from viewing tower

We pressed on and stumbled on Snape Maltings. On the outskirts of Snape, there were a series of huge buildings used to malt barley and now a concert hall and shops. They happened to be holding the annual Aldeburgh Festival. This seems to be a collection of largely-grotesque art works which we were told were very significant.

Distant Henry Moore sculptures

The first place we reached on the actual coast was Aldeburgh. This is a pretty village now famous for being pretty and consequently pretty expensive. We had lunch, strolled the pebbly beach and looked in the boutiques.

Our last coastal stop, a bit further north, was Southwold. This is famous for similar reasons. It's quite appealing even though there is a nuclear power plant on the horizon. The pier was pleasantly old-fashioned and we also went to Adnams, the large regional brewer on the High Street.

Southwold Pier

After this we turned inland and ended up in Beccles, at Waveney House where we're staying the next two nights. It's on the River Waveney, so the far side of the river is Norfolk. This is definitely a pub rather than a manor house, and so a bit shabby and down-at-heel compared to our last place. I booked it largely because the view of the pub on the river looked nice.