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We were on holiday in Swanage in Dorset last week, so I thought I'd just mention a few of the places we went. We stayed in a cottage we rented from Swanage Holiday Properties - nice little place, just up the hill a bit from the beach. The town itself is quite pretty - lots of Purbeck Stone buildings, and the beach is lovely (although we only managed to get on there one day because the weather was quite unpredictable). There's a pier, and a tiny museum, and just up the coast there are some fantastic cliff walks. We were hoping to walk up to Durlston Country Park but there doesn't seem to be a pushchair accessible route unless you go by road. So we just drove up instead. I mainly just wanted to see the Great Globe they have there.
Places we ate that were good included:
Less good were the fish and chip place on the seafront - very soggy batter, and Antonio's Italian Restaurant - not that there was anything wrong with the food, but it was horrifyingly expensive.
There's quite a few places to go nearby, but the nearest and most obvious is to get the steam train to Corfe Castle. There's a model village of the village itself (and yes, it does have a model of the model village in it) with a very good cafe. If you go there first you get a two for one entry to the castle + you get a further discount for going on the steam train. The castle isn't really good for pushchairs, but they actually had some back pack baby carriers you could borrow, which I thought was pretty good. The only problem with the castle was that the top bit (ie where all the most interesting stuff is) was actually shut for some kind of conservation work when we went. Not sure how long that's going to last.
We also went to Dorchester, where we visited the dinosaur museum. Our 4 year old really liked it, especially the activity room upstairs. I'd say it's a bit overpriced for what it is - the interactive stuff is running on an old Commodore Amiga for instance. There are some more museums there too - one each for Tutankhamen, Mummies, and The Terracotta Army. Didn't try those. We did have a very good lunch at Potters Cafe Bistro.
Just outside Dorchester (we discovered, as we got slightly lost on the way out) is Maiden Castle. There's a good path up to the top - our 4 year old was fine on it, and it's not too arduous to get up there.
There's quite a lot of other stuff locally - Lulworth Cove, Portland and Chesil Beach, apparently Bournemouth now has an aquarium that looks quite good. We also kept seeing signs for Monkey World. Didn't get to check those out, but there's enough to make us come back again. Probably when the 1 year old is able to walk too, then it will be easier not having to worry about accessibility so much.
Posted by MFreestone at May 24, 2006 08:38 PM