England Guide
East Anglia
The three counties of East Anglia – Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire – are renowned for their wide skies, flat landscapes and pretty coastlines. The Suffolk coast in particular is one of the most unspoilt shorelines in the country. Highlights include the sleepy isolation of minuscule Orford and several genteel resorts, most notably the delightfully elegant Southwold. Neighbouring Aldeburgh hosts East Anglia's most compelling cultural gathering, the three-week-long Aldeburgh Festival, which takes place every June.
Norfolk, as everyone knows thanks to Noël Coward, is very flat. It's also one of the most sparsely populated and tranquil counties in England. Its capital, Norwich, is East Anglia's largest city, renowned for its Norman cathedral and castle, and for its high-tech Sainsbury Centre, exhibiting a challenging collection of twentieth-century art. The most visited part of Norfolk is, however, the Broads, a unique landscape of reed-ridden waterways that has been intensively exploited by boat-rental companies. Similarly popular, the Norfolk coast holds a string of busy, very English seaside resorts and a charmingly unspoilt littoral, whose marshes, creeks and tidal flats are studded with tiny flintstone villages, most enjoyably Blakeney and Holkham.
Cambridge is much visited, principally because of its world-renowned university, whose ancient colleges boast some of the finest medieval and earlymodern architecture in the country. The rest of Cambridgeshire is pancake-flat fenland, for centuries an inhospitable marshland, but now rich alluvial farming land. The cathedral town of Ely, settled on one of the few areas of raised ground in the fens, is an easy and popular day-trip from Cambridge.
Highlights
1 Orford Solitary hamlet with a splendid coastal setting that makes for a wonderful weekend away.
2 The Aldeburgh Festival The region's prime classical music festival washes over the ears every June for two and a half weeks.
3 Southwold A postcard-pretty seaside town that is perfect for walking and bathing – without an amusement arcade in sight.
4 Norwich Market This open-air market is the region's biggest and best for everything from whelks to wellies.
5 Holkham Bay and beach This wide bay holds Norfolk's finest beach, acres of golden sand set against hilly dunes.
6 Ely Isolated Cambridgeshire town, with a true fenland flavour and a magnificent cathedral.
7 Cambridge Fine architecture, dignified old churches and manicured college quadrangles jostle for prime position in the compact city centre.
The Norfolk Broads
Three rivers – the Yare, Waveney and Bure – meander across the flatlands to the east of Norwich, converging on Breydon Water before flowing into the sea at Great Yarmouth. In places these rivers swell into wide expanses of water known as "broads", which for years were thought to be natural lakes. In fact they're the result of extensive peat cutting, several centuries of accumulated diggings made in a region where wood was scarce and peat a valuable source of energy. The pits flooded when sea levels rose in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to create the Norfolk Broads ( 
www.broads-authority.gov.uk ), now one of the most important wetlands in Europe – a haven for kingfishers, grebes and warblers – and the county's major tourist attraction.
The best way to see the Broads is by boat, and you could happily spend a week exploring the 125 miles of lock-free navigable waterways, visiting the various churches, pubs and windmills en route. Of the many boat rental companies, Blakes Holiday Boating ( 
0870/220 2498, www.blakes.co.uk ) and Broads Tours Ltd ( 01603/782 207, www.broads.co.uk ) both have rental outlets at Wroxham, seven miles northeast of Norwich and easy to reach by train, bus and car. Prices for cruisers start at around £700 a week for four people in peak season.
There are Broads Authority bike rental points dotted all over the region, and walkers might consider the 56-mile Weavers' Way, which winds through the Broads on its way from Cromer to Great Yarmouth.
One of the Broads' major sights is Toad Hole Cottage (June– Sept daily 9.30am–6pm; April, May & Oct Mon– Fri 10.30am–1pm & 1.30–5pm, Sat & Sun 10.30am–5pm; free), an old eel catcher's at How Hill, near Ludham, six miles east of Wroxham. Behind the cottage is the narrow River Ant, where the Electric Eel runs wildlife-viewing boat trips (June– Sept daily 10am–5pm, every hour; 1hr; £4.50; 01692/678 763). Another enjoyable boat trip is on the Helen of Ranworth, a former reed lighter that runs out into the Broads from Ranworth, twelve miles east of Norwich. (Easter– Oct 1 daily; 2hr; £5.50; 01603/270 453).
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