Southwold

From what I understand some of my family line through Grandma Kay came from Southwold, which is in Suffolk County on the southern coast of East Anglia. I believe this is the place Southold, New York (which is also in Suffolk County) is named after.

Since John and I are renting a car currently we decided Southwold would be our first trip. It is not on the train line and also isn't that far from us (about an hour).

We had a very nice time. The coast is beautiful there. Very different from Great Yarmouth and a lot classier. John put it that they have expensive touristy things instead of cheap touristy things. It's true. There are a lot of art galleries.

We ate some coastal sea food at a local inn, then walked around looking for the old rail station (which was on the map we had). We couldn't find it, but we found the railway gift shop. The men in there were very friendly and I think they enjoyed talking to us. It turns out the old rail station is now the police station (which we had passed several times). They are trying to raise funds and get permission to get the old line running again. We bought some post cards and accepted a pamphlet talking about the rail foundation.

We considered going on a boat tour but decided we were already too wet from the rain. So instead we got pastries from the bakery and ate them on a bench overlooking the ocean.

We spent the rest of the afternoon driving around Norfolk because John is really enjoying having a car and his driving wasn't scaring me too much.

The coast:















I'm looking at the camera here, but the wind is blowing my hair in my face: