We ended up in Rye because J googled “weekend getaways from London.” And thus we found ourselves on a Friday night along with an abundance of other middle aged merry-makers in the excruciatingly quaint town of Rye, a small town in East Sussex.

It’s only 60 miles or so from London, and easily reached by train, one change only, from St. Pancras. Incidentally, if you’ve reached your 60s, the BritRail pass with the senior discount is a beautiful thing. St. Pancras itself is something to behold. The old Victorian train station I remember as the start of our trips up to Sheffield/Rotherham remains in exteriors only. The ticket office is now a high end restaurant, and the entire station is occupied by shops and cafes – more like an airport than anything else.

We arrived in Rye too early to check in, so found a nice cafe – Jempson’s – where I had a “cheese lattice” and J a chicken and mushroom pie. It was only about his 5th small meal of the day.

The AirBnb was down a narrow alleyway close to Landsgate, a 1339 or so guard tower. It had two rooms, separated by very steep stairs and facing the Queens Head pub. Only downside was late night noise from revelers across the street, and a 5 a.m. wake-up call by screeching gulls that apparently save their party time for early morning.

Rye itself is near the English Channel. It used to be on the English Channel (the “Rye Camber”), but over the centuries, storms and reclamation of the bay have resulted in the water silting up, creating huge salt marshes. Seemed very apropos for the swamp part of this blog. There were a plethora of half-timbered buildings, quaint shops and pubs, and women on week-end breaks all wearing summer dresses and straw hats – and shopping.

J and I had a drink in a garden pub, and then went to the very funky Queens Head across the street. Food was cheap and excellent – ranging from roast chicken (me) to Korean kebabs (J). We waited around for the live music, a very over the top cover band that played everything from ZZTop to John Denver, and brought the mostly middle-aged crowd out onto the dance floor.

I was interested in the intellectually challenged young man who seemed to hang out at the pub on a regular basis. The manager let him help out with everything, and he was clearly a fixture (I saw him there the next morning also from our vantage point across the street). It was nice to see how he was an accepted part of the fabric of everyday life.

Our one full day in Rye was reserved for a hike to the Rye Nature Preserve, the, or one of the, largest coastal preserves in the U.K. After some difficulty finding the beginning point, we finally started the hike. Through narrow corridors lined with hedges, into marshy salt marshes – small islands outlined with rushes.

We made our way to the very new Discovery Center where we ate sandwiches. There was one strip of beautiful long sandy beach (Camber Sands) – that then turned into a shingle beach – what seemed like miles of rock beach, consisting of perfectly round stones that angled sharply into the water. It was like walking over stone sand dunes. It was hard going and we soon returned to the trail.

The skies darkened, grey against white, and we pulled out our rain gear just in time. The trail crossed the marshes and then blended into sheep pastures, with lots of stiles and gates. We were a little unsure of our location on our by then battered and wet brochure map….the Camber Castle, set apart atop a slight plateau, never seemed to get any further away.

But finally we ended up with the Brede River on our left and the Brede Locke straight ahead, the end of our 8 or so mile excursion in sight.

On the way back we stopped at the Waterworks Micropub. It’s been everything from waterworks to public toilets. I had a half pint of a local cider, Tenterden. Cider is a big deal here and I’ve never seen so many real, hand pulled ales.

After washing the grime off, we went to a Turkish restaurant on the High Street for dinner. We walked up to and around St. Mary’s, where we found an absolutely lovely pub, Ypres Castle, nestled in its lower walls. Met a very interesting fellow from Manchester who had been living in Rye but was about to move to Belgium. It was his last night in town, but he was nonetheless as welcoming to two tourists as could be.

Actually, everyone we encountered in Rye was remarkably friendly. It seemed to presage good things to come as we got ready for the next leg of our trip – to the Basque Country in Northern Spain.