Barb really, really, really wanted to see a small town up the beach called Rye. We thought, not unreasonably, that it would be easier to take the local train than to drive through the beachfront towns, where traffic can be rather irritating. "You'll have to change trains at Hastings," everybody said, when we outlined our plans to them. Okay, we'll change trains, we said. We didn't realize it was a warning. The ride from Cooden Beach to Hastings took all of fifteen minutes. Changing trains required stepping across the platform to a train that was waiting to leave. It waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited -- how many is that? Thirty-two. And waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited, and waited for forty-five minutes. We could've walked there faster.
Rye was a nice place. I'll bet it's a real tourist trap in season, but the season hadn't started yet, so we had it mostly to ourselves. We strolled through pretty little cobbled streets and admired the cozy-looking houses. Our photos of Rye feature a shot of Mermaid Street, which is really very famous although to me it looks like many other streets in English villages. Barb and
Tim are posed in front of a tea shop in Mermaid Street that's famous for being in a film or television show I can't recall the name of right now. Almost all the houses along Mermaid Street are named, which isn't unusual in England, but I thought the names were clever enough for pictures; the house on the left is named "The House With the Seat," and the house on the right is named "The House With Two Front Doors." After having a long wander through the village, anybody would want to relax with a refreshing drink, so we stopped at the Ypres Inn, which Tim remembers because it's at the bottom of a steep stair where he spent quite a bit of time sliding down the rail.
After returning from Rye (Warning! You've got to change trains at Hastings!) I wanted to visit a village called Battle, where the Battle of Hastings was fought, just one of the many battlefields that Barb indulged me by tromping through. We didn't get to do any tromping, though. The battlefield is a big-time tourist trap now, surrounded by high walls and hedges. You can catch a glimpse of it from the parking lot, but if you want a good look at it, you've got to pay at the entrance to the abbey. The entrance fee was a little higher than advertised, but we'd come so far that I was prepared to pay until the guide noted that we wouldn't be able to walk though the battlefield because of precautions against spreading foot-and-mouth disease. We would only be able to tour the abbey. So they were charging us more to see less. We settled for a glimpse of the battlefield from the parking lot.