| Product: |
Lyme Regis |
| Date: |
02/09/00 (100 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: unspoilt
Disadvantages: it's along way from where I live!
Lyme Regis was a complete surprise to me.
I'd never been to that part of Dorset before and it was nice driving through the pretty-as-a-postcard villages to get there. On arriving at Lyme Regis I was immediatly struck by how unspoilt it was. There was no ultra modern concrete-and-glass office complexes, no industrial estates,and no ugly multi-storey carparks (unfortunately Warwick and Stratford both suffer from all these).
Instead everything olde worlde has been preserved...there are even thatched cottages close to the town centre. Although there is loads of car-parking, it is all tucked away discreetly, just out of the town centre. Kiss me quick hats and cheap souvenirs???...forget it. Lyme Regis has a host of small individual retailers who have decided not to go down the cheap-trash route. Instead there are craft shops, second hand booksellers, fossil shops etc etc. Lyme Regis has done what a lot more tourist haunts should do...and that is reflect the local area. The area is famous for fossils, seafish and Thomas Hardy amongst other things, so rather than just being another could-be-anywhere British seaside resort, the shops, pubs, and restaurants all use these assets to their advantage....but not in a tacky, plastic way. Its great to visit a town centre that is so totally different to everywhere else (no Curry's, Comet, Dorothy Perkins etc). Some other resorts along the coast ought to take note.
There are some great places to eat (a lot of locally caught seafood)..the pubs are particularly good value. I can especially recommend the Royal Standard (by the quayside)...a 400 year old coaching inn that has a large menu, huge portions and is not expensive (16oz steak for under a tenner).The beers good too!
As I say I'd never been before...but I shall definitely go again!!
Summary:
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Last comments:
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- 07/09/00 I'm ashamed to say that I've never been despite living in Dorset for most of my life. I didn't realise it had escaped the tourist trap that has ruined so much of the south coast. Sounds lovely. |
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- 03/09/00 It was great to read your review on Lyme Regis as I live 11 miles along the coast from there. It was wonderful to read the impressions through a new visitors eyes. I'm glad you liked the absence of all the 'usual dross' associated with coastal resorts. They filmed the French Leiutenants Woman there, and many of the shops, pubs, restaurants kept the frontages that the film company built for the sets, thus making it even more 'olde worlde' but I can't remember what they were like before. Good pubs aren't they????? |
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- 03/09/00 I think I'll have to pay it a visit! |
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