Boutique hotels
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Vine House
- Style
- Georgian with a French frisson
- Setting
- Pretty Burnham Market
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Strattons
- Style
- Eco, eccentric, arty and eclectic
- Setting
- The Brecks in Norfolk
Norfolk Overview
United Kingdom
- Countryside
- A walk on the wild side
- Country life
- Quiet and quirky
The famous Broads, the wild and wonder-filled beaches, the huge skies: Norfolk is a remote and inspiring corner of England, just a couple of hours from London.
This flat-as-a-pancake county is filled with historical houses and wild countryside, and criss-crossed with waterways. It also has perhaps the most fascinating, breathtaking and romantic coastline in the country.
Naturally Norfolk
Partly because it’s so flat – you can see the weather changing, the light and clouds moving across the sky, the tides zooming up the beach – Norfolk gives a real sense of nature at work. Explore at your leisure in Holkham Nature Reserve, or speak to your hotel about organised trips. Seal-spotting and sailing are particularly recommended.
Local knowledge
- Taxis
- Even outside train stations, it can be hard to find a cab. Ask your hotel for details of a good local company and book ahead.
- Tipping culture
- About 15 per cent is appreciated.
- Packing tips
- This is one of the few places in the UK where swimming in the sea can be a wonderful, wonderful thing, so take your trunks or bikini.
- Recommended reads
- Malcolm Bradbury’s classic satire The History Man is based on his time as a teacher at the University of East Anglia in Norwich during the Seventies. WG Sebald, who wrote the brilliant Austerlitz, also taught at the university.
- Cuisine
- There’s lots of game, but best of all is the fish: Brancaster mussels and Cromer crab are favourites.
- Currency
- Pound sterling.
- Dialling codes
- Country code for the UK: +44.
- Do go/don't go
- Norfolk is among the sunniest and driest places in England – but it’s still in England, so there’s a chance of rain even in July.
