Suffolk England Weekend Itinerary

Travelers in search of England’s classic seaside towns often head to Devon and Cornwall, southwest of London. But the popularity of those counties — particularly since more Brits snapped up second homes there during COVID — means bumper-to-bumper traffic in summer and restaurants booked out weeks in advance.

Many are now turning their attention to Suffolk, about two hours northeast of the capital, for its quiet beaches, meandering river walks, and elevated pubs and restaurants. Here’s how I spent a long weekend there recently. 

Friday

For a wild stretch of golden sand framed by crumbling cliffs, rather than the more popular Southwold Beach, I went to Covehithe, on the north coast of Suffolk. When I arrived mid-morning, it was nearly empty, except for a few families building sandcastles. I lingered for a while, watching a glossy black ibis tiptoeing toward the ocean, then drove to Walberswick, a seaside village on the river Blyth. After a lunch of crab linguine and an Adnams IPA at the Anchor, a pub with 10 guest rooms, I headed down the road to Thorington Theatre, a wooden amphitheater built inside a World War II bomb crater. Its popular summer calendar includes child-friendly Shakespeare and comedy acts.

From there, it was a short drive to Wilderness Reserve, an 8,000-acre estate with 27 individual lodgings, including cottages with one to six bedrooms and two sprawling manors, one with 13 bedrooms and one with 17. My one-bedroom thatched-roof cottage had its own swimming lake and hot tub, plus a sauna and a steam room. The sitting area had a dramatic brick chimney that corkscrewed from floor to ceiling. It was a chilly evening, so I ate my fish pie — freshly made and delivered to my door — in front of a crackling fire. 

Saturday

After breakfast, I paddled around my private lake in a rowboat. Guests at Wilderness Reserve can also try clay shooting, paddleboarding, axe-throwing, and archery, so it’s tempting to stay put. (A Wilderness ranger even set up a target behind my cottage so I could test out my bow-and-arrow skills.) But this part of Suffolk is strong on art galleries, so that afternoon, I popped over to Yoxford to visit Rowe & Williams, which specializes in modern and contemporary works by local artists. I was drawn to a 1970s oil painting of Walberswick with a glittering Pointillist sea by Lionel Bulmer, who lived in Suffolk for several decades.

Aldeburgh, perhaps Suffolk’s best-known town, was my next stop. Its main road, High Street, is a parade of brightly colored Georgian cottages and stores like Aldeburgh Bookshop, which hosts a small literary festival each year. I browsed the titles by Suffolk authors, then took a windy walk along the beach, dodging kite flyers and seagulls swooping for stray morsels of fish and chips. 

I had dinner at the Suffolk, a recently restored six-room inn where I also spent the night. The restaurant by George Pell — the man behind London’s legendary L’Escargot — began as a pop-up and opened permanently in 2022. My favorite dishes were the seaweed pappadums (inspired by the Indian snack) served with a dollop of oyster mayonnaise; crab in a brioche bun; and brill drenched in butter and capers. Spent from the day, I took my mille-feuille dessert upstairs to my room. The sound of the North Sea, which I could see from the window, lulled me to sleep.

Related: 13 Most Beautiful Castles in England

Sunday

On my last day, I went to Snape Maltings, an arts complex near Aldeburgh that has become Suffolk’s cultural headquarters and hosts a well-known classical music festival each June. The brick buildings, which were used to malt barley in Victorian times, now house a concert hall, shops, and galleries. I found impressive sculpture, too: three of the bronze figures from Barbara Hepworth’s famous The Family of Man. (All nine of the figures were originally installed at the center in 1976.) 

For lunch, I headed to the Greyhound Inn, in the village of Pettistree. With Harry McKenzie, formerly of London’s storied River Café, at the stove, it’s also one of the county’s newest gastropub destinations. The River Café’s influence was clear in the daily menu; I ordered the light-as-air gougères (cheese puffs made with Gouda from neighboring Norfolk) and gnocchi with red mullet and crunchy breadcrumbs.

There was just enough time for a tour of Orford, a pretty town that was an important port and fishing village in the 12th century. These days, it’s best known for the pastries at Pump Street Bakery. I took my Eccles cakes (pastry filled with brandy-soaked currants) and walked along the Alde River, following the footpath to Orford Castle, which was built in the 1100s by King Henry II and recently restored. The tour guide regaled my group with colorful anecdotes, including a fable about a mute merman who was caught in a fishing net and imprisoned in the castle before escaping back to sea. 

The Merman of Orford is the emblem of Butley Orford Oysterage, a seafood restaurant just down the road from the castle. There, I had a dozen creamy oysters grown in the nearby Butley River. The meal seemed a fitting end to my weekend in Suffolk, a place connected by its beaches and marshes and rivers, each town perfectly unhurried and untethered.

A version of this story first appeared in the June 2024 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline “Get Swept Away on the English Coast.”