3 posts tagged “rye”

About a million sheep later, we found the sea:

For perspective, here's looking toward the sea from the town.  Rye used to be a port city:
Our tourist map of the country walk sorta failed us once we got to the beach, so we ended up lost in the country amongst holiday caravan villages (read: trailer parks) and old man pubs.  After a replenishing pint, we finally found a bus stop and got back to Rye, where we hit another pub:
At the Cinque Ports, I got hit on by an old Australian sailor who was once stationed in Brooklyn in the 1970s, which was pretty exciting, I got a free pint out of it.  It was there that I read the awesome news of David Hasselhoff being thrown off a plane at Heathrow and Mel Gibson's infamous DUI.  Love British tabloids. 

The next day, before we headed back to London, we went to the Castle Museum:
Ye olde fun was had:

Neither husband nor I were able to really lift the longbow bag of sand, it's heavy!

With this weak ending, we took the train back to London, more later...

As a Lamb, I hoped I could go to the Lamb House and have them give it to me, as a potential heir.  But, alas, it was closed the day we were there, so I didn't have a chance to find out:
After wandering around for awhile, there was nothing to do but go to an air-conditioned pub and hang out:
Husband got absorbed in a John Major biography found on the shelves and I read more guidebook.  We ended up going to dinner that night at SI! Simply Italian across the street:
We didn't realize it was a chain until we got back, but wow, the English know how to do a chain, with locations that are different and menus customized to different restaurants.  Unlike American chains, where everyplace looks exactly the same.  After dinner, we had more beers at the longest-continually operating pub in England, The Old Bell:

Pretty amazing to drink in a place that's 700 years old, but how do they really know it's been open that long?  Most of the places we went to in Rye were at least a few hundred years old, so a lot of places make the claim that they are the oldest.  Good pub, though, and the bartender settled our dispute about whether or not Charles would be king (probably not, because the Brits loved Diana and won't forgive him for how he treated her, though he could technically become king if he wanted to, he'll probably turn it over to his son).  Finally, here's a sight you don't often see in America, straight men sharing a cider:

Posting...

Arrived in Rye in the afternoon, which is so quaint and cute, it hurts.  It seems fake, it's so old and adorable, but everything really is a million years old and impossibly charming. Evidence:

We stayed at the Old Borough Arms Hotel, which was great, but Rye is so small it's hard to be in a bad location.  Here was the pub across the street:
And the hotel corner:

Believe it or not, it was here in Rye at Simon the Pieman on Day 6 of our trip that I had my first cream tea in England.  Check out my sunburn:
It was a bit weird having hot tea and scones on an insanely hot day with a sunburn, but hey, I couldn't resist the lure of cake:
I will continue when I've finished uploading photos tonight, as not a lot happens in Rye, but there are lots of pretty photos.  Happy New Year!