Shaftesbury
It took awhile for dirck to adjust to driving on the “wrong” side of the road, with a left hand stick shift (or gear shift as the Brits say) not to mention very narrow roads but we made it here to lovely Lyme Regis, on the Jurassic coast in Dorset where we are staying at a sweet little studio apartment Airbnb way up on a hill overlooking the bay.
We walked down the hill after arriving around 5:30 p.m. to the sound of seagulls and took the coastal path which has glorious views of the high grassy dunes lining the shore on the distance. The colors of the sky, shore and sea are stunning, all pale blues and tans plus vivid green and huge pink hydrangeas popping out everywhere.
Lyme Regis
The coastal path leads along the shoreline past a rocky beach and a sandy beach where people were swimming to the town center with narrow streets rising up from the water, lined with old storefronts. We walked through a gorgeous terraced garden above “the Cobb” — the high sea wall that juts out into the water, made famous by the novel The French lieutenant’s Woman.” I was here 30 some years ago but hardly remember the place. And I think it’s changed a lot.
We splurged on dinner at Hix Oyster and Fish, said to be one of the best Dorset restaurants. It’s in a glass walled modern room (almost Scandinavian feeling) of a house next to the terraced gardens and overlooking the bay and Cobb. We had lightly battered oysters, baked creamy crab and shared Lyme Turbot, beautifully served on a rough dark wood board, with a delicious seaweedy type green, and finished with a small scoop of house-made raspberry sorbet. We walked through the quiet town and way up the hill to our Airbnb (6 charmouth close) feeling happy to be here.
Earlier we,stopped briefly in the pretty market town of shaftsbury, where we had a basic ploughmans with local country ham at King Alfred’s, in a low ceilinged timbered room and admired the valley view from the pretty gardens near the town’s elegant abbey.
TakeBetsywithyou 