Rye - not the drinkable kind

 Rye in Sussex, that is. Angie and I are just on our way back from our first visit to the town after spending an extended Easter weekend there. 

Neither of us had been there before and had heard it was good so gave it a shot. It was good, and had lots to recommend it. I heard it described once as "England's best seaside town that's not actually by the sea" and it does have a feel of that.

When you walk around the place you see so many ancient houses with signs such as 'rebuilt in 1490'. There are dozens of timber-framed buildings up most of the streets in town, wherever the land rises a bit. Th 'land rising' is no coincidence because apparently in the 12th century Rye was nearly surrounded by sea, even though now it is about three miles distant. So any lower-lying streets are by definition later. But eventually the river silted and storms cut off the old channels, and finally, farmers kept draining lands in the surrounding marshes to have more land for their sheep. So Rye ended up landlocked and not involved in trade any more. 

There are plenty of old buildings to loaf about in and there are several cracking restaurants and good galleries. But it does have that Aldeburgh/Southwold sense of 'I wouldn't like to be here in the off-season'

On the Saturday we stirred the culture pot by going to the less genteel Hastings for the afternoon and ended up listening to old school rave on the pier with a neat rum. Then this morning we took a long detour on our way home to see some white cliffs, which fully lived up to their billing. 

And now we are rolling over Sussex Downs on the way home. And have had a lovely time.