a weekend in Margate

After the detour to visit The Yarn Dispensary in Faversham (see last post), we headed on to Margate for a weekend away by the coast.

For those of you who are reading this from far-flung places, Margate is a quintessentially English seaside resort town in Kent, just a short trip outside London.  Like many seaside resorts, Margate experienced significant decline in the face of cheap package deals to places like Spain, where sunshine and warm weather are virtually guaranteed.  It has however benefited from recent regeneration and development (including the Turner Contemporary gallery), and I joined the Down-From-Londoners in checking it out for a couple of days.

When going to the seaside, of course everyone wants to stay right by the sea, right?  Here’s the view from the window of our rather lovely Air BnB flat:

Couldn’t get much closer than that!

One of the big attractions is Dreamland, an original “pleasure park” funfair that suffered from neglect but is now being brought back to life in a retro kitsch way, complete with fabulous Grade II listed wooden rollercoaster.  We spent an hour or two enjoying the rides, racing around on dodgems, and I even got to try roller skates for the first time!  It was all quite good fun (despite the grim weather) and there are plans for more of the park to be refurbished.

Margate has a lovely old town with lots of second-hand (er, vintage) shops which are good to have a look through (but at London prices).  Sadly I came home without any new purchases.

Gillian from The Yarn Dispensary gave me a recommendation to try GB Pizza Co, so we went there for dinner one night.   I have to say it was great advice: the pizzas were super thin, super crispy, and thoroughly delicious.  An unexpected bonus:  they have Prosecco on tap!  Brilliant!  There are no photos however, because I virtually inhaled the lot.

If you get the chance to go to Margate, definitely have a pizza and Prosecco and enjoy the scenery.