In Praise of. . .Essex!

As expected, there wasn't much of waterway interest in our cycling "Tour de Essex" although as it turned out it wasn't totally lacking.
A whole series of problems with the train journey from Hereford led to us abandoning the rails at Broxbourne and cycling up the towpath of the Lee Navigation instead.

The first half of the tour was along the Exxex/Suffolk border and Constable Country where we saw pretty villages

Lovely old churches, like this one at Thaxted:



Historic buildings, such as Thaxted Guildhall

and found our way following some superb old signposts

We followed the Stour valley all the way to the coast at Harwich, where we were in time to catch the annual Sea Shanty Festival at the towns 1911-built Electric Palace cinema. It's the second-oldest surviving purpose-built cinema in the UK - we've also been to the oldest, which is in Campbeltown, Scotland.