We decided to take advantage of our English Heritage Membership Cards, so far we have been unimpressed by most of the places we have encountered so thought we would head far into Norfolk and discover what they had to offer. We'd planned to visit Castle Acre Castle, Castle Acre Priory and Castle Rising Castle.
Our first stop was Castle Acre Castle, simply because we decided to turn right rather than left to Castle Acre Priory.
We were met by a beautiful village. Really beautiful. One in which you dream of living, cycling around and meeting up with the locals at the pub and/or tea rooms.
The Castle Acre Castle is pretty much just ruins, as a result anyone can visit and there is no one checking tickets or cards or asking for money.
We had bought some picnic bits on the way so traipsed along the uneven footpath with our picnic hamper, change bag and a boy under one arm and other one hanging off the other hand and made our way into the main area.
It was really beautiful and although simply just ruins with not a huge amount too them, it was more than just a wall. You felt really confined, safe and relaxed.
Smack bang in the middle happened to be 4 dips, 2 families were situated in 2 of the dips eating their picnic and relaxing so we positioned ourselves in another.
Charles decided it was far too much fun to eat a picnic and instead ran up and down the hills, rolled down the hills and was being very nosey trying to find out what the other families were doing.
And of course, his mobile brother wanted to follow him too and make his own discoveries. So our relaxed picnic was more of an exercise course and mission to catch each boy before they lost control and rolled too fast into a pile of rabbit droppings.
We stayed for a while, playing with the boys until Charles decided he needed the toilet so we set off to Castle Acre Priory.
Here are a few photos I was able to take at the Castle ruins.
