Day 2 of Norfolk (By Glenn)

We left our luxurious (if difficult to find) room and set out on what was to be yet another busy day of history spotting, the trip through the centre of Norwich is SOOO much more pleasant on a sunday morning when we are the only ones on the streets.

Initially we had planned to go to "cow tower" which was a part of the old wall that surrounded Norwich and the castle, however due to the other things we had planned, we decided to give it a miss and go straight to the first stop the "Caister on sea" roman fort... but as we left town.. we spotted a neat looking old tower just off the main road, a quick u turn...  and a short drive the wrong way down a one way street and we found ourselves at the Cow Tower and wall after all,  it was again a thing of beauty... at least 5 foot thick walls and just tucked away and virtually ignored along a side street, quite stunning.

So on to to Caister, a roman fort built in the 2nd century to protect the merchant ships as they plied their trade... in the 2nd century???  what the hell were they plying i want to know.. mustve been damn valuable to built such a fort, it was used until the end of the 400's when the roman forces were withdrawn. We sat briefly, picked a piece of stone from the walls (vandals) and imaginned the life of the roman who placed the stone there 1800 years ago.

This was a neat building on the edge of Gt Yarmouth, i think it was part of their wall.. but i cant remember.



Then this one is another neat old building in Yarmouth with me talking to mum on the mobile as we walked about.

An so onto the sea front at Great Yarmouth, we were loking for the pier to take some pics simialr to a couple Nic has, unfortunately the Pier was no more, we walked along the sea front as the still near gale force winds blew us away. then we went inside to the cheap and tacky (Just my style) penny arcade. We sat down had a cup of tea and a scone and discussed how differnet these places mustve been back in the 50s-60s. We imaginned the thousands who would flock here for the summer holidays filling the shoreline and queuing for their chance on what must have been so very different games to play.

You may remember from our previous trip to Brighton, that we are great lovers of the penny machines, you know, where you drop the penny in.. and hope is makes dozens of other pennys drop... well that love has continued to grow, so we got our 1 pounds worth of two P's and set to win our fortune. Now its worth remembering that at 10.30 on a sunday morning in february, there are not many people in the penny arcade in yarmouth, actually in truth there are NO people except us. We laugh, squeal and jump up and down as our carefully measured coin drops see us CERTAIN that we are about to see hundreds of 2P's come our way, even better than the coins...is the dream... the possibilty .......... the unbelievable hope, of winning the key ring that seems just to far out of reach for even us to imagine winning.

We mustve played the machine for 40 minutes having a fantastic laugh as we celebrated each miniscule win... then suddenly a couple of perfectly placed drops saw the key ring precariously balanced so close to dropping, there was nothing for it.. we committed another 80p to the change man and set about winning this holiest of grails.... and yes, following another 15 minutes of planning, swearing, laughing and an occasional attempted nudge of the machine... WE HAVE WON THE KEY RING!!! oh how we celebrated.

Off we go again, this time in search of a Burgh castle, a 25 min drive and there were were, quite lovely and still in use today so we quietlt made our way around it and headed off again. (we have just realised, as we are writing this, that we didnt go to the castle)... we dont actually know what it is in this picture, but   hahahahahahaha, its not where were meant to be.

On so.. off we go again, a quick stop for lunch in a quaint little market town...

then onto Framilingham castle, this is where Henry the 8ths daughter Mary tudor (Bloody Mary) was crowned. It was thoughout time used also as a prison and a poor house. My interesting fact is, that of the many chimneys on the house/castle most were completely useless, but were built purely because at that time chimneys were seen as a sign of wealth and prestige. The size and scale of the buidlings and walls is quite incredible but weve probably mentioned that before. Framlinghma was unusual because, as we looked at it from outside, it seemed huge and we expected to be blown away inside, but actually the inside was much smaller than we imaginned.

Once again I foolishly attempted to storm the castle, as i rushed up the hill... well, i say rushed, i commenced with rushing... but it pretty much petered out to little more than shuffle by the time i reached the wall... my attempts to batter the stonework away with my bare hands was... unsurprisingly... fruitless, even shouting at it did no good. I then climbed to the top of a broken bit of wall... and following a HUGE gust of wind, was verrrry nearly blown off of it whilst waiting for the Photographer to get her picture.

Our next stop was Orford castle, where Framlingham had appeared huge from outside and was smaller within... Orford was the complete opposite, as we appraoched it looked toweringly tall and incredbly solid... but looked as though it would be quite small within. Infact it was much larger than we expected, the walls were so thick that they contained room after room within the 8-10 foot thick sides.

That brings to an end our weekend in Norwich... a lazy 3 and a half hour drive and we arrived home at about 6.30.


Big video of yarmouth street....

Big video.. CHARRRRGE!!!