Cambridge, Stamford, Lavenham, Norwich & Cromer
 

And Edmunds St. Bury

This is a trip report from my last week's visit to East Anglia with 15 people.

Transportation: We hired a smaller coach from Carriageways near Cambridge for our trip. Dee, the driver and owner, was amazing. Her driving skills, reliability, knowledge and personality really made our trip special. I can only sing praises about her and her company.

Itinerary:
Day 1: Pick up at Heathrow and drive to Cambridge. Tour Cambridge in the evening.

Day 2:
Morning at Cambridge including buying food at the stalls (Barley Buzz was my favourite) and a walk through the stunning St. John's college.
Afternoon: Tour of Ely and its cathedral. We had our first afternoon tea at Peacock's tea room
Evening: Dinner and a Pub Quiz at Willingham

Day 3:
Drive through the Suffolk villages which included a tour in Lavenham

Day 4:
Tour of Stamford and Burghley House

Day 5: Tour of Edmunds St. Bury including the town market and Greene King Brewery
Evening: Arrival in Norwich

Day 6: Tour of Norwich and an afternoon doing a canoe trip with Pub and Paddle

Day 7: Boat ride at Blakeney Point, lunch at Wells and then an afternoon at Cromer

Day 8: Shopping at Norwich and then back to Heathrow

We stayed at Premiere Inn City East in Cambridge and Preimiere Inn Duke Street in Norwich.

Everyone had a magnificent time and we fell in love with the area.

If you have any questions, please ask!

First question: how did you get 15 people to agree on an itinerary? Were you Kleeblatt Supreme Dictator (I've always wanted to be a dictator, and this route to being one looks promising...)

Being their English teacher and designated tour organisor, I get to pick the destination and create the itinerary. Since I know Norwich quite well, this particular itinerary was a work of love.

Well, good for you. We had only four nights in East Anglia (two in Cambridge, including a quick jaunt to Ely to hear a choir concert in the cathedral); my all time favourite beach town, Southwold; and Norwich. We only had time to nip in to Bury St. Edmunds en route to Southwold.

I have the novelist PD James to thank for my interest in the region, what's your excuse?

BTW, what's the average age of your students - or is this an adult English course?

I've been attending a master's course at Norwich which is why I know the area. My students are 40 + so it's all easy peasy. There's an incredible amount of history in the area but after awhile you really stop caring about the Duke of this, the Marquis of that and the history of each and every church. However, meeting the locals is always a highlight as well as just meandering. I'm a huge fan of Norwich and it's one of the places I feel at home.

We didn't make it Southwold but I'd love to do this tour again with another group. The hotels were practical and reasonably-priced, our coach was comfortable, the driver was a gem and I've got tour guides and lists of things to do at each place listed. Now if only someone would pay me to guide....

It is a fascinating area and yet many people never go further than Cambridge. (Don't get me wrong, I understand the problem - people have to be quite selective in most cases where they go on their trips.)

I think you had the ideal age group - people willing to focus on one area are usually old enough to see the wisdom of that. And they had an ideal tour organizer given you know the area so well.

You want to get paid, aye, there's the rub. A real dictator wouldn't have that problem, they just raise the taxes on the peasantry...

Thanks for the report. I have been thinking of spending time in Norwich if I make it back to England. Last time I stayed in Cambridge for a few days (in one of the colleges) and finally visited Ely where I fell in love with the cathedral. I would be traveling by public transport, though.

Thursdaysd: Public transport is fine in Norwich and the coastal towns. Stamford and Burghley house are also easily accessible by train. Lavenham, on the other hand, may only be accessible by bus. It's a magical little town that takes you back in time. When we arrived in the town, a man told us about the local luncheon and sale to support the cancer society so that's where we went. We had a delightful light lunch and were able to talk to the locals. Lavenham is losing its tourist office which is a shame as the area is quintessential.

I have found google maps pretty reliable on public transport - except for ferries, for some reason.

Living in East Anglia myself (near Bury St Edmunds) I can attest to the fact that getting around by public transport is very difficult. You really need a car to do it justice. I love Lavenham, but there are some other very pretty villages in the area as well. When I first came to Suffolk I lived in Aldeburgh, the seaside town that captured my heart. The Aldeburgh Festival, with concerts at Snape Maltings, is held in June. My daughter went to school at Southwold, another very pretty town, home of Adnams.

I was afraid of that, but I really don't want to drive. Although I grew up (not far from Bury St. Edmunds) and learned to drive in England, it has been well over a decade since I last drove there, and I no longer drive at night. Any local tour companies ala Rabbies in Scotland?

A first pass through the guidebooks had turned up Southwold and Aldeburgh, along with Swaffham, Oxburgh Hall, Sandringham, Hunstanton Cliffs and Blickley Hall, with maybe a southern outpost at Colchester for the Beth Chatto gardens and Coggleshall.

Thursdaysd, I don't know of any local tour companies, apart from the coach services that take OAPs to Great Yarmouth, Sandringham, etc. Driving the back roads of East Anglia is very easy, as long as you avoid the seaside towns on summer weekends.

Well, I am old enough to join the OAPs, lol, but that wasn't really what I had in mind.

There's a tour group out of Cambridge that does Lavenham. I used their itinerary as a starter for my own Suffolk itinerary.

https://www.visitcambridge.org/thing...splora-p686681

Heimdall: Remember Wednesday? Oh, was it wet! We were at the market but standing outside was useless. It was rainy, windy and just miserable. It started to clear up around 4 so we raced through the Abby garden and continued our journey to Norwich. Bury St. Edmunds has a lot to offer historically and is worth having a tour guide to explain it all.

By the way, before Bury St. Edmunds, we stopped at the "galloping?" at Newmarket and watched the race horses exercise. Anyone touring in the area should definitely do that since the horses are highly bred and the experience of watching them be trained is quite thrilling. We watched them from a lay-by along some fields.

Thanks kleeblatt - looks like it may be July only, but visitcambridge has an email address for tour info.

We fly into Mildenhall and take the bus and train everywhere. My husband loves a challenge. Bury St Edmunds has a great Saturday street market. Did you visit the Colman's mustard museum?

Macross: We heard a lot about it but didn't go. We went to the Greene King Brewery instead. Bury St. Edmunds has a bit of an odd feel to it.... it's very much an old market town where one can still feel the country folk coming in with their goods to sell as well as stocking up for another week. There's also a feeling of loss that the old abbey was torn down since it ruled the town for so many years and must have been the jewel of the area. King Henry VIII left his mark all over England and many still blame his lust for Anne Boleyn for the destruction of the Catholic churches and its art inside.

Queen Mary's tomb (she was Henry VIII's sister) can be found in St. Mary's, next to the alter. It's just a stone slab with her name inscribed; quite unfit for a queen of that time. I'm sure there's quite a story behind that too.

Bury St Edmunds had a real market town feel when it still had the cattle market in the centre of town—now it's a huge car park and modern shopping centre. The market still operates on Wednesdays and Saturdays, but no livestock auctions. The market stall holders aren't exactly "country folk coming in with their goods", they do that for a living, selling everything from fruit & vegetables to vacuum cleaner accessories, sausage rolls, and cheap clothing. The pubs do a good business on market days, but you don't see many farmers wearing gum boots anymore.

The abbey is still worth seeing, if for nothing else, the beautiful well-maintained gardens inside the walls. The Abbey Gate is still there, and next door is the 12th century cathedral, which didn't have a tower until one was added in the 2000s. The tower is so well designed it looks just like the older parts of the building. Visitors are welcome in the cathedral. Unfortunately after the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, most of the fabric of the monastery was carted off for buiding materials.

Klleblatt wrote: "Heimdall: Remember Wednesday? Oh, was it wet!" Yes it was, and yesterday was hot and sunny, the warmest May Day weekend on record. Right now it's warmer than on the Greek Islands, but unfortunately it won't last. English weather!!!

Macross, it's worth mentioning that the Mildenhall airfield is an RAF base occupied by the US Air Force, so no one flies there unless they are on a military aircraft. Yes, it's possible to go by bus/train to local attractions, but I don't know how one could string together the sort of tour thursdaysd is looking for. Maybe visitcambridge.org will be the answer.

We fly into Mildenhall on military aircraft. We have two bus stops close by the main gate of the base. We also have a taxi stand inside the gate if we are lazy or want to get into town quick. We catch the bus to Mildenhall's big bus station which btw has the most beautiful church. I do know some relatives were born and married in Bury St Edmunds but left for America in the late 1600's. I will have to break down and buy the World ancestry to be able to read the church records but would love to know which church. Bury St Edmund's has a good Greek place. Great food.

Macross, here is a current list of churches in Bury St Edmunds, and most of the Anglican churches probably date back to the 16th C: List of churches for : Bury St Edmunds | GENUKI

I'm quite familiar with the area, as I worked both military and civilian at RAF Mildenhall from 1977 until 2013. I still live in the local area, closer to Bury St Edmunds than Mildenhall.