{"id":4108,"date":"2019-07-12T10:13:04","date_gmt":"2019-07-12T09:13:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/?p=4108"},"modified":"2019-07-12T10:13:04","modified_gmt":"2019-07-12T09:13:04","slug":"getting-out-of-london","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/07\/12\/getting-out-of-london\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting out of London"},"content":{"rendered":"

Though we’ve been on holiday, we’ve mainly just been hanging out in London. Off to the Banqueting House which I hadn’t seen (and how long have I lived here?!) And getting stuff done around the house. But I’ve been wanting to go to Arundel for years now, so we decided Tuesday afternoon to just go. Booked a B&B, got up Wednesday morning early and headed out.<\/p>\n

It’s close enough to be a day trip but I wanted to see everything so we stayed a night. Got to Arundel Wednesday lunchtime, dropped the bags at the B&B (Arden House<\/a>, recommended!), and went out for lunch. Found a really nice little tea room (Belinda’s Tearooms<\/a>) and had a light lunch. Joe says you know it’s a posh tea room as the brown sauce came in it’s own little bowl on the side. We walked around the town, including the Victorian Cathedral, and the steep roads!<\/p>\n

Then off to the Castle<\/a>! I got the ‘see everything’ ticket. We ended up sandwiched between two very large German school groups who were headed for the castle, so we went the other direction to the gardens. We went into the Fitzalan chapel (but missed the Anglican church) and then wandered the gardens. We had beautiful weather and the gardens are lovely.<\/p>\n

Then off to the castle. First up the many many steps to the Norman keep – tiny twisty narrow steps up to the keep! That’s the oldest bit of the castle as the rest is mainly Victorian. We then went through the bits of the house that are open taking our time to see everything.<\/p>\n

Then headed for the Arundel Museum which is tiny! Which is good because we only had about 45 minutes before it closed! It’s an interesting little place and if you have a castle ticket you can get in for \u00a31 (though they take your castle ticket). Behind the museum is the Waterside Cafe and we stopped for a well needed drink and sit down.<\/p>\n

Once showered and freshened up, we headed out to find a place for dinner. Most of the places are on Tarrant Street so we walked along looking at menus. Found The Parsons Table<\/a> which is tucked off the street and luckily they had a table because the food was wonderful! Joe tried the local beer, very local – Arundel Brewery and called Tarrant Street! Also luckily our B&B was downhill from the restaurant so we could just drift back down!<\/p>\n

Up early the next morning to head out to the wetlands, which was the main reason I wanted to go to Arundel! You’re suppose to be able to see water voles there, but of course I didn’t! After a lovely breakfast, we headed out along the river to walk to the wetlands. The river walk is lovely – should have taken about 40 minutes to the wetlands (about 20 by the road) but we took just over an hour because we kept stopping to look at things! Into the wetlands – we headed for the boat safari but then saw that the wildflower spotlight session was starting so headed for that. I thought we’d get to walk around the site looking at what was in bloom, but instead you sit in a hut and she talks about various plants and their uses. You can see the dried plants, but that’s not as helpful as getting to see them on the site! A bit disappointing though interesting.<\/p>\n

We then walked all over the site popping into the hides for a sit and look. We were in the sand martin hide – on the path leading to the hide is a large sign telling people to be quiet. So of course a staff member doing a tour came tromping up the path speaking in a huge loud voice and carried on in the hide, voice bouncing off the walls as he showed off. I wouldn’t have been as miffed if the sign hadn’t been there!<\/p>\n

We did the boat tour in the afternoon and it’s lovely. We saw loads of dragonflies, damselflies, minnows, pike, roach\/rudd, and all sorts of birds flitting past too fast to identify. But don’t expect to see anything on the banks because the people in the boat talk quiet a bit! It’s more a ride than a wildlife spotting trip, but still fun! (At least there weren’t any hippos and the boat driver didn’t have to have a toy gun.)<\/p>\n

We finally found the reed walk and that was lovely! It loops through the reed beds and there are all sorts of things to see. And that leads to the woodland hide which has bird feeders. So we spend time there watching the birds flit in and out.  Definitely worth going to see!<\/p>\n

After the wetlands we walked back into town and stopped at the Norfolk Arms pub for very late lunch. Had a really good meal (the food around Arundel is excellent) and then off to the train station to head home. Got to the tube at a good time as it wasn’t very crowded and home in  the evening! Could easily do Arundel WWT in a day, but to see both the castle and the WWT we did need the two days!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Though we’ve been on holiday, we’ve mainly just been hanging out in London. Off to the Banqueting House which I hadn’t seen (and how long have I lived here?!) And getting stuff done around the house. But I’ve been wanting to go to Arundel for years now, so we decided Tuesday afternoon to just go. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4T97-14g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":530,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/02\/heading-for-seaton\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":0},"title":"Heading for Seaton","date":"Tuesday, 2 July 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Today was a driving day. Slept in, got up, got breakfast, got packed, took our time, and still were an hour early to pick up the car! They were having trouble with their computer systems, but didn't mind us there early and got us sorted and on our way. And\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4257,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2023\/12\/15\/and-back-to-doing-as-little-as-possible-with-some-travel\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":1},"title":"And back to doing as little as possible (with some travel)","date":"Friday, 15 December 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Monday started well, got up early, had breakfast, and down to the harbour to go whale watching. Were far too early, as is normal, so found a bench and watched the boats. Saw the ferry come in and so checked the timings and realised we can get the ferry back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":229,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/08\/28\/home-again-3\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":2},"title":"Home again","date":"Thursday, 28 August 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"And at work. Dreary grey day in London and stacks of work on my desk, but on the plus side there are scones in the kitchen. Got up yesterday and had breakfast before strolling to the train station. Leaving at 11.40 is awkward - to late to just go and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Frog Blog"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4268,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2025\/12\/01\/nature-watching\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":3},"title":"Nature Watching","date":"Monday, 1 December 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"So we didn't take a laptop on this trip. For once. But Joe took loads of photos and they'll be on Flickr at some point. And I took notes while we travelled and now updating with dates as they happened. We stayed at the Premier Inn at Gatwick before leaving.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4187,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2019\/12\/29\/road-trip-part-2-every-kind-of-road\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":4},"title":"Road Trip Part 2 (every kind of road)","date":"Sunday, 29 December 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"So we have travelled on motorways, A roads, B roads, and C roads in Australia. We've also done sealed and unsealed (ie paved and unpaved) roads, as well as named and unnamed roads. All the roads. We left Victor Harbour after a walk about the area. We found a nice\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":158,"url":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/2008\/06\/17\/while-kathleen-was-working\/","url_meta":{"origin":4108,"position":5},"title":"While Kathleen was Working","date":"Tuesday, 17 June 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"While Kathleen was working I took a wander around the campus taking a few pictures which you can see below. The day was quite hot so went quite slowly looking at all the different buildings of different ages. Popped into the help desk to ask about gaining access via wireless\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Map"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4110,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4108\/revisions\/4110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.purple-penguin.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}