Norwich; Saturday, 26 June, 2021

I had an early ticket to visit the Castle Museum, and because I hadn’t booked breakfast at the hotel, I headed out just after 9 to go to a café in town for a quick coffee and croissant (and maybe a bacon bap) fuel stop before heading over to the castle.

The castle is Norman in origins and has served a number of functions, including prison, until the interior was gutted back to it’s shell during the Victorian era and it was turned into a museum. Trying to undo the vandalism of the Victorians the city is currently undertaking a multi-million pound refurbishment and restoration of the keep to return it close to how it would have looked when the castle was first built (albeit with modern day accessibility – the Normans we’re known for putting lifts in their buildings). The work is due to be completed in 2023, but as this is 2021 it’s pretty obvious that much of the site was going to be closed. Instead just a small wing on the museum – in a part of the building that was built onto the side of the Norman Keep – is open to look around, but they’ve made sure that some of their most important artefacts and exhibits are on display in this area.

After looking round the museum I headed back down from the castle into the city centre, and arrived at the bus stop for the open-top sightseeing tour with a few minutes to spare before the first tour of the day was due to depart. The tour takes in the key sights in the city centre, as well as climbing up onto Mousehold Heath high above the city centre for views over Norwich – including its numerous church towers and spires.

Back in the city centre I had a bit of a wander before stopping off near the market to get a spot of lunch. From there I wandered on to the ruins of St Benedict’s Church. Norwich has a very large number of churches – a reminder of when Norwich was the most important city in the country after London. Many have been repurposed, but some – as is the case with St Beneditcs – time and nature have taken control and the much of the church has now gone, with just it’s round tower still standing, albeit with lots of warning signs around it that it’s a dangerous structure at risk of collapse.

A short walk away from the ruins, and the other side of the city Ring Road is the Catholic Cathedral. If the Anglican cathedral is identifiable by it’s tall spire and long nave the Catholic cathedral is identifiable by it’s imposing bulk – the building makes itself know with lots of thick walls and towers. I arrived between a series of christenings, which meant that the whole of the inside had a weird hazy feel with the smoke from incense still billowing round the interior.

Next door to the Catholic cathedral is the site of a former quarry. The space has been reused as a hidden garden – The Plantation Garden, with the walls of the quarry turned into terraces with a grand Italianate staircase running up the back wall. Sunken deep below the level of the surrounding buildings and roads this is a peaceful oasis in the heart of the city, but even on a warm June afternoon was surprisingly empty.

Having taken in the garden and with the weather looking good I decided it would be nice to head out to the coast for the afternoon so I headed over to the bus station to take the bus out across the Norfolk Broads to the coast. From Norwich there are two express routes that head out to the coast. The X1 (and X11) heads out to Great Yarmouth before the X1 continues down to Lowestoft. The X2 (and X21 and X22) go straight across the broads to Lowestoft. With a cheap day ticket for the county it’s possible to do this as a circular route, and that’s what I decided to do – arriving at the bus station in time to catch an X22 out to Lowestoft.

I should, however, have learnt from my experience from just a few weeks earlier in Darlington, that just because its beautifully sunny inland, doesn’t mean that the coast isn’t shrouded in a cold enveloping mist, and in the final couple of miles heading into Lowestoft it became clear that this was the case. I had a bit of a wander around the town centre, but the weather really wasn’t pleasant so I headed back to the bus station to pick up an X1 to head up the coast and see if Great Yarmouth was any better. It wasn’t.

Rather than hopping off the bus in Great Yarmouth I decided to just stay on and head back into Norwich, which was probably for the best as I was treated to some lovely views across the broads as the edge of the fog banks gently rolled across the flat landscape just a couple of miles inland.

Back in Norwich I popped back over to the hotel to freshen up, before heading out and grabbing some dinner in a restaurant just by the station.