The north Norfolk coast

Dramatically poised on a high bluff, CROMER should be the most memorable of the Norfolk coastal resorts, but its fine aspect has long been undermined by a certain shabbiness in its narrow streets and alleys. Things are at last on the mend, with new businesses arriving to add a touch of flair, while the town council keeps a string of cliff-top mini-parks and gardens in immaculate condition.

It’s no more than the place deserves: Cromer has a long history, first as a prosperous medieval port – witness the tower of St Peter and St Paul, at 160ft the tallest in Norfolk – and then as a fashionable watering hole after the advent of the railway in the 1880s. There are three things you must do here: take a walk on the beach, stroll out onto the pier, and, of course, grab a crab: Cromer crabs are famous right across England and several places sell them, reliably fresh, and cooked and stuffed every which way.

CLEY (more formally Cley-next-the-Sea), once a busy wool port, is now little more than a row of flint cottages and Georgian mansions set beside a narrow, marshy inlet that (just) gives access to the sea. The sea once dipped further inland, which explains why Cley’s fine medieval church of St Margaret is located half a mile to the south, at the very edge of the current village, overlooking the green. You’re near a couple of splendid nature reserves here, both excellent destinations for birdwatchers – and don’t miss the Cley Smoke House for superb locally smoked fish.

A mile or so west of Cley, delightful BLAKENEY was once a bustling port exporting fish, corn and salt, and is now a lovely little place of pebble-covered cottages sloping up from a narrow harbour. Crab sandwiches are sold from stalls at the quayside, the meandering high street is flanked by family-run shops, and footpaths stretch out along the sea wall to east and west, allowing long, lingering looks over the salt marshes.

Blakeney harbour is linked to the sea by a narrow channel that wriggles its way through the salt marshes and is only navigable for a few hours at high tide. At low tide the harbour is no more than a muddy creek (ideal for a bit of quayside crabbing and mud sliding).

The footpaths latticing Holkham Hall estate stretch as far as the A149, from where a half-mile byroad – Lady Anne’s Drive – leads north across the marshes from opposite the Victoria Hotel to Holkham Bay, which boasts one of the finest beaches on this stretch of coast, with golden sand and pine-studded sand dunes. Warblers, flycatchers and redstarts inhabit the drier coastal reaches, while waders paddle about the mud and salt flats.

Three rivers – the Yare, Waveney and Bure – meander across the flatlands to the east of Norwich, converging on Breydon Water before flowing into the sea at Great Yarmouth. In places these rivers swell into wide expanses of water known as “broads”, which for years were thought to be natural lakes. In fact they’re the result of extensive peat cutting, several centuries of accumulated diggings made in a region where wood was scarce and peat a valuable source of energy. The pits flooded when sea levels rose in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to create these Norfolk Broads, now one of the most important wetlands in Europe – a haven for many birds such as kingfishers, grebes and warblers – and one of the county’s major tourist attractions. Looking after the Broads, the Broads Authority maintains a series of information centres throughout the region.

The Norfolk Broads are crisscrossed by roads and rail lines, but the best – really the only – way to see them is by boat, and you could happily spend a week or so exploring the 125 miles of lock-free navigable waterways, visiting the various churches, pubs and windmills en route. Of the many boat rental companies, Blakes and Norfolk Broads Boating Holidays, are both well established and have rental outlets at Wroxham, seven miles northeast of Norwich – and easy to reach by train, bus and car. Prices for cruisers start at around £700 a week for four people in peak season, but less expensive, short-term rentals are widely available too. Houseboats are much cheaper than cruisers, but they are, of course, static.

Trying to explore the Broads by car is pretty much a waste of time, but cyclists and walkers can take advantage of the region’s network of footpaths and cycle trails. There are Broads Authority bike rental points dotted around the region and walkers might consider the 56-mile Weavers’ Way, a long-distance footpath that winds through the best parts of the Broads on its way from Cromer to Great Yarmouth. There are many shorter options too. As for specific sights for landlubbers and boaters alike, one prime target is Toad Hole Cottage, an old eel-catcher’s cottage holding a small exhibit on the history of the trade, which was common in the area until the 1940s. The cottage is at How Hill, close to the hamlet of Ludham, six miles east of Wroxham on the A1062. Behind the cottage is the narrow River Ant, where there are hour-long, wildlife-viewing boat trips in the Electric Eel.