After spending the night at Alessandra’s place in Stroud, we started early as she had a job photographing a kitchen unit for a company that manufactures induction cookers in Gloucester. I assisted her the best I could and we headed off on the long drive to Norfolk.
We stopped at Kings Lynn, just because it was on the way. I did think, though, that it seemed a suitable place to have a break. It’s the first city in England to have been declared a member of the Hanseatic league. This was only five years ago, and as part of some modern-day cross-sea cultural exchange, but Lynn had shared a lot of trade with the Hanse cities in medieval times.
The Great Ouse also held particular interest for me, after having spent so much time looking at maps of the Fens in the library over the weekend. The river’s course has been altered over the centuries and was key to the draining of the Fens by Cornelius Vermuyden and the like. I noted how silted up the Ouse appeared to be.
From here we drove to Cley next the Sea, and after a quick visit to the beach, checked in at the Kings Cottage bed and breakfast, just off the High Street. We spent a little too long reading emails and checking social networking sites. This meant we were then too late for dinner when we eventually headed out around 8.45. None of the pubs was still serving food.
On the suggestion of a passer-by, we drove along the coast to Wells next the Sea (another “next the sea” town that is not next to the sea) in the hope that we may be able to get some fish and chips. When we got there, we soon realised we were too late for this, but we were able to get a meal at the tandoori restaurant on Freeman Street. As we left, I noticed the car was parked on the opposite side of the street to Dogger Lane. I later googled this and it seems to be the only Dogger-named street in the UK and one of only eight worldwide, the others being in the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
[iframe http://maps.google.co.uk/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&t=h&msa=0&msid=217293522043879939576.0004a4999800885fedabb&ll=51.903613,4.350586&spn=3.769223,11.634521&z=5&output=embed 370 370] (View Dogger streets in a larger map)
We drove back to Cley and spent the night at the B&B.