Greetings from London! Since I wrote my last entry on my explorations of the Peak District whilst spending the first two weeks of my holidays in Sheffield, I have returned to London and have enjoyed the subsequent three weeks of my holidays here, hosting my wonderful family for visits. This has been a wonderful time, and having been able to spend time with them has certainly been one of the positives that out of this tricky situation. I also managed to fit in a day trip myself from London to a nearby point of interest, which I enjoyed very much, and which I will write about here. But first, just a bit of background on where some of my summer travel planning this year began.
When we first went into lockdown back in March, one of my first thoughts was what I should do with my Easter holidays at the time. I had initially planned a trip to California, but this was pretty quickly dashed as all hopes of international travel at that time quickly dematerialised. My subsequent thoughts were either to spend ten days travelling around England, or do a number of day
trips from East Croydon station, which has amazing direct connections to everywhere south of London from Southampton in the west to Hastings in the east. Subsequently though, with the lockdown details, came the instruction not to stay overnight anywhere except in your own house, and not to travel for anything other than key worker work purposes. This blew any chances of going anywhere at all for the Easter holidays for me, but it did sow some ideas for my summer travels: a trip around England, and day trips from East Croydon.
And thus this summer, in addition to my two weeks in Sheffield, Im planning a trip around England at the end of August, and one of my day trip ideas from East Croydon station also came into fruition: on Thursday 30th July to be precise.
Thus, on this warm Thursday morning, I boarded a Southern train southwards from East Croydon station towards the wonderful city of and surrounding area around Chichester, capital and only city of the English county of West Sussex. It was a thoroughly enjoyable day and I enjoyed every moment of my visit there.
the small village of Bosham (pronounced Bozzum), located in the spectacularly beautiful Chichester Harbour Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB), and head eastwards along country paths through the AONB, to the city of Chichester, whence I would return to East Croydon. Changing trains briefly at Chichester first, I boarded a very local, clappety south coast train to take me the final two stops to Bosham, a tiny station a mile north of the small village of the same name. My walk thus first took me southwards into the Chichester Harbour AONB, with latte in hand bought from the local next to the station, and into this delightful, quaint, and really rather popular harbourside village.
Bosham was lovely – a quintessential English village, with thatched cottages and country gardens, many of which I believe I must have seen somewhere on a jigsaw puzzle at some time. It sits quietly on the shores of the Bosham Channel, which along with the Emsworth, Thorney and Chichester Channels, makes up the watery coastline of this lovely wetland area. Upon arrival, the tide was clearly out, and the whole of Bosham Harbour was exposed to the sun, glistening a beautiful emerald
colour due to the abundance of seaweed, and interspersed by lovely little fishing boats temporarily marooned by the receded tide. Along with Bosham, with the notable spire of its Holy Trinity Church jutting out above the thatched rooves and harbourside cottages, the sweeping vista across and around the bay made for some wonderful photos. Although it was a Thursday midweek, the place was bustling with tourists and families, many of them having picnics on the village green overlooking the harbour, while their children went paddling in the shallow waters.
