SECLUSION IN SUFFOLK
SOME YEARS AGO, my then boss was organising her hen weekend. She wanted to go somewhere in the country, but not too far out of London. She fancied Suffolk, but didn’t know much about the place. So she rang the English Tourist Board to see what they could tell her. She was rather surprised at the response.
“Where did you say?”
“Suffolk.”
Long silence. “Never heard of it. Are you sure you don’t mean south Norfolk?”
The ignorance of even some employees of our tourism organisations about Suffolk’s charms isn’t entirely surprising. Somehow, when people think of East Anglia, they inevitably gravitate to the Norfolk Broads, or those (admittedly wonderful) North Norfolk beaches. The rolling hills of inland Suffolk seem to be awaiting discovery.
At least that’s what I think after two visits to the area around Bury St Edmunds, the county town, earlier this year - before and after the lockdown - in our long-term-test Adria Altea Aire (p50).
Traditional shops
At first sight, Bury itself seems charming, but rather like any other English country town - lots of cloned shops and restaurants. And while it has not one, but two corn exchanges, one of these has been
