Lee Goes to Norfolk (and also covers a bit of Suffolk).
Yesterday, me and Tracy got back from a lovely long weekend in Norfolk. We visited many places (589 miles worth) and I would like to share some of our experiences of those places.

Day One
We started with a long drive across to the place where we were going to stay. We stayed at Moor View near the village of Dickleburgh in Norfolk). This was a lovely place to stay, run by a friendly family and I would recommend it to anyone wanting to visit the area. I only wish I'd taken my telescope to take advantage of the nice dark sky!

Day Two - Thetford
The Ancient House was an interesting old house to have a look around. It also acts as a museum of local life and centres on some notable characters from the town. People such as Thomas Paine and Maharajah Duleep Singh. We spent a couple of hours going around this place!

The town itself is nice enough to walk around on a nice day. We had in our possession a tourism leaflet that took us on a tour of the town (see pages 3 and 4 of the haunted leaflet for the trail we were on). The highlights for me though were the aforementioned Ancient House and Thetford Priory - even if we didn't have time to go in to the grounds.

In my opinion, you could spend a couple of days in and around Thetford and not get bored. That was praise for the town by the way (in case you missed it).

Day Three - Framlingham Castle and Melford Hall
The castle was our first stop of the day. I believe English Heritage should be proud of this site. The audio tour catered for both adults and children (though Tracy found listening to the childrens version just as entertaining). We both found the history of the place fascinating; for instance, Mary Tudor was proclaimed Queen whilst at Framlingham (she had gone there to gather her supporters and troops).

The museum in the old poor house had activities for the kids as well as displays for the older visitor. We managed to spend a couple of hours at this place and would say it is worth visiting. It seemed quite popular with families when we were there and only one or two of the kids seemed bored.

Melford Hall, however, didn't seem as organised a tour compared to other places we have been to and so I don't think we got the most out of it. There didn't seem to be much information supplied about the rooms we were looking at and I have to say that I was a little disappointed. Perhaps we were doing it wrong and were supposed to keep pestering the stewards (who, I want to point out, mostly seemed approachable and friendly enough) for information?

That said, the grounds were nice (I even got to play croquet) and the link with Beatrix Potter (and accompanying memorabilia) was interesting. The stained glass window 'collection' in the entrance room was nice too.

Day Four - Holkham Hall
Now this place was impressive and I am grateful for the recommendation to visit this hall. You could spend a day here with no problem whatsoever and I would suggest a visit to see for yourself as my description will not do it justice.

The grounds were lovely and open to the public; deer were seen to be roaming freely and we saw a boat on the lake that I assume was taking people for short trips.

The hall was used as one of the filming locations for film "The Duchess" and you can see why. Buying the guide book for this property was useful for that extra depth of information but in a few of the more significant rooms the stewards would tell you about the room and what was so special. So it felt like a well organised tour and even though my jumper was all crinkled from the suitcase I didn't get one dirty look. I was impressed!

The Bygones museum was worth a visit, though I was more interested in the vintage cars than the rest of the exhibition or the history of farming section; though I'm sure that many would find it fascinating as it was well presented.

And finally...
In conclusion, it was a very nice long weekend and I would like to thank all of the nice people that we met along the way for helping to make the trip that bit better.