BROADSTAIRS

Viking Bay, Broadstairs

'Dark Troubadour of the West', TONY WAKEFORD (of Sol Invictus), takes time out to visit one of the editor's favourite holiday destinations. Photos: Rik.

Set between the horror of Margate and Ramsgate, Broadstairs seems to hark back to an England of at least 30 years ago. A tiny and hidden-away amusement arcade is its one nod to blatant commercialism and even this was free of the compulsory male prostitutes. (Mind you, we were there off season.) This is culturally counter-balanced by a tiny and charming independent cinema.

We stayed at the Royal Albion Hotel whose weather-beaten façade hides a comfortable and friendly hotel where Charles Dickens once rested his quill. Also to be recommended is the restaurant Marchesi, two doors down, whose French-Swiss menu is very much worth perusing. Their set lunches and dinners are especially good value. I can thoroughly recommend the fried brie as a starter and the portions throughout are thankfully free of any nod to dieting. The same Albion Street also houses a handful of second-hand bookshops, so the belly and the intellect can be sated with the minimum of waddling. An important plus in this writer's book.

Broadstairs' Viking Bay and the bays either side make bracing walks that even I enjoyed despite the occasional dog muck. Other nostalgic glories are a tiny crazy-golf-course whose owner was indicative of the general friendliness of the locals. It was even unthreatening on a Saturday night when much of small town England turns into a good advertisement for armed temperance. Finally there is the glory of Morelli's Icecream Parlour (Victoria Parade), spotlessly clean and reveling unselfconsciously in its décor of 50s kitsch. It boasts shining formica, a sparkling plastic fountain, a jukebox…o yes, and the best ice cream this side of the Alps. To borrow from The League of Gentlemen, "You'll never leave" but in this case because you don’t want to.

TONY WAKEFORD - 29 March 2000

'99 Solstice celebration