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Published: July 31st 2017
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And then England ….ah England, we just can’t do a trip to Europe without visiting home, land of my birth and spiritual home for Rhys.
Having done justice to most of the usual holiday spots we decided to have a week in Kent, always a popular holiday destination for the British but not so much for overseas tourists – too close to London maybe.
We were prepared for an English ‘summer’, expecting to wear gear brought for Iceland, but this year southern England put on a display of summer weather that would be hard for NZ to rival. During a week in Kent and five days in London we only had showers on our last afternoon. I got sunburnt in Brighton after weeks in the southern Italian sun.
Kent glowed with yellow corn fields and tunnels of iridescent green hedges and trees along the narrow country lanes, grown so lush in the heat of an early summer they had been trimmed straight sided to let busses pass. When a break in the hedge rows permits, the landscape flows away in a series of chalk ridges, perfect for growing hops and the now popular grape vines for sparkling wine.
The Pantiles
Elegant restaurant and shopping area of Tunbridge Wells You either drive along the top of the ridges or dive down into the wooded valleys to picture-perfect villages then zig-zag up again. South East England must have the densest network of roads in the UK.
We did lots of diving down narrow roads searching for another of the area’s attractions – more stately homes and castles than you can shake a pollarded willow stick at.
We’d kept up our membership with Heritage New Zealand and enjoyed the ability to swan through so many walled gardens and wrought iron gates free of charge as reciprocal members that this occupied most of our week - apart from sampling the local beer and cider of course. In total we visited eight National Trust properties, Rhys’s favourite being Chartwell, home of Winston Churchill, mine being the inspirational garden of Sissinghurst and perfect princess castle of Bodiam.
Our base was Tunbridge Wells, long mocked by English intellectuals as a bastion of middle class conservatism, but now a popular commuter town for the city. It has all the conveniences of a big town but is nestled elegantly in gorgeous countryside crisscrossed with walking trails and, if you had the money, would
Sawmill Cottage, Tunbridge Wells
and the bright yellow rental Jeep be a delightful place to live (and is probably still a bastion of middle class conservatism).
It has “Location…Location”, being under an hour by train from London and an easy hour’s drive from many south coast destinations. Brighton is a classic English seaside spot – miles of promenades, the best pier, lovely Victorian and Edwardian buildings and a vast array of ‘English people at the beach’ to watch and mock.
We’ve visited several time but couldn’t resist going again. It was so warm the pier was full of people lolling on deckchairs in various stages of undress and heat exhaustion. Ice creams dripped from sticky hands, crowds of school children on overseas trips swarmed around noisily, not taking any interest in anything other than taking selfies.
It was sweaty, rowdy, crowded and wonderful – all these people experiencing the fact that when England does summer it does it brilliantly.
Our cottage was adorable, but here’s the thing…we are both small people, we only just missed out on being cast as Hobbits, but we spent a week banging our heads on walls and ceilings in 17
th century Sawmill Cottage. It had those wonky narrow stairs that go
round as well as up to the bedroom, which had a low ceiling that just gradually
becomes the walls, just at the height to make unexpected contact with the top of the head as you reach for your glasses on the dresser, go to pull the blinds or lean over to clean your teeth.
The greatest danger we have found with overseas travel is ‘accommodation collateral damage’, a litany of minor injuries caused by unfamiliar and badly designed rooms and apartments – usually the privately rented ones. Stubbed toes, bruised elbows, gashed knees on bed-ends and coffee tables, that sort of thing.
It’s a first world problem we know, but the scars last longer than the jet lag.
Last time we were in London, about 18 months ago, it looked like they were building some terrible monstrosity right next to the Tate Modern on Southbank. We found out it WAS the Tate Modern, specifically the new extension, completed a year ago.
It makes use of the underground concrete storage tanks from the building’s previous life as the Bankside Power Station and, scrubbed up but still looking grottily industrial, they make a perfect exhibition space
from inside Bodiam Castlefor contemporary installations. It’s not what I’d call a beautiful building, but what can you do when you have to blend into an ex-power station.
What IS beautiful is that the perimeter of the 10
th (top) floor is a viewing platform with a 360 degree view of the city, probably the best stationary view of London as the Tate is right by the river.
After dinner on Saturday night we took the lift to the top floor again in time to see a glorious sunset over the city – and since the Tate has free admission, one of the best city views in the world is completely free.
My reason for choosing our hotel was its’ closeness to Tate Modern, but more exciting for Rhys was that it had a Tesco Express next door, a Sainsbury’s over the road and a Co-op a few doors down. Three supermarkets!!...he bought wine from all three to spread the love.
The Southbank is a great area to stay in – the bridges take you right into the centre of the city but there’s easy walking access to restaurants, pubs, parks and of course iconic cultural facilities such as The
Chartwell House, Kent
Winston Churchill's home from 1922-1965 Globe, National Theatre and Tate Modern.
One of the wonderful things about London is that its biggest and best museums are free, although the British Museum is so big and so free it’s become a bun-fight – besieged by foreign school groups who rampage through the galleries and rummage round the gift shops screaming and jabbering, taking little notice of the priceless exhibits.
We were glad to get out of there and will give it a miss next time in favour of the more manageable and less hectic Museum of London.
The National Gallery in Trafalgar Square is always a must – pick a year range and just do that or you’ll go gaga…and don’t forget the National Portrait Gallery tucked in behind – we caught the National Portrait prize this time – wonderful.
But really the thing we love to do best in London is just wander the gorgeous streets and lanes, sucking up the history and atmosphere.
Each time we leave I never know if I’m going to get back again…but I hope so.
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Home and Away
Bob Carlsen
Thanks for the memories...
When we lived in Brussels we would visit Kent almost every Easter break.