Advertorial
The Kent coast is such a beautiful area and so easily accessible from central London. It is full of unique towns with amazing personalities, independent businesses and lovely people. To celebrate Southeastern’s Off-Peak Day Return Offer from London to 12 wonderful towns, we were asked to discover some of Deal’s hidden gems along with our four children.
1) Pop Up Cafe
First thing is first and that should always be coffee. We found a little place called Pop Up Cafe that offered food made freshly onsite and the coffee smelled great so we went in. The menu was simple and full of their homemade sourdough bread which I loved! They offered a variety of alternative milks for coffee including oat (my favourite) and did simple things like cheese or jam sandwiches for the kids. We stocked up ready for a busy day and left to look for the coast.
2) Deal Beach
Deal has a long pebble beach which starts level with the promenade and drops down a few times towards the sea. It was beautiful to walk along but what the children loved most was running down the pebble hills and learning to skim stones. They were determined to throw all the stones back in the sea but sadly we ran out of time for them to do this. We made towers, we had races and they had to be dragged away when it was time to leave!
3) Deal Pier
Deal Pier was built in 1864 although it has recently been renovated and is lined with fisherman. You can hire everything you need at the entrance although we decided not to
this time and there is a welcoming little cafe at the end where you can buy lunch or ice cream and look out over the sea. There is a walkway all around the outside so you can look out or back on the colourful seafront of Deal town and it definitely needs to be visited as part of a trip. It was only a few minutes walk from the train station (as everything is in Deal) so it was so easy to get here too.
4) The Lane Bakery
The most important thing I want to know when I visit a new town, is where to get the best cakes and I asked a few people who know this area and always got the same response.
The Lane Bakery is only a 2 minute walk from the train station and has the most amazing selection of cakes - so much so that it took us about 10 minutes just to decide what to have! I will be making a trip back to make sure I don’t miss out on the cookie dough chocolate brownie! It is open 7 days a week and does plenty of vegan and gluten free options. The Bakery is one of two local businesses owned by Anna and Chris and their cafe looked just as delicious!
5) The Arcades
Further along the seafront, we found a small vintage looking arcade where you could ride a painted horse for 20 pence and spend all your two pences. There were stools for the little
ones and we could collect tickets to buy something special at the end (our children chose a calculator!). No trip to a seaside town is complete without ice cream and the arcades in our opinion and this one was easy to find, just a little way along from the pier and within easy walking distance from Deal train station (about 10 minutes if you have little children in tow).
Everything in the town was so close and accessible and we loved not having to find parking and being able to jump on the train when it was time to go home (with a fish and chips picnic to make it a truly British seaside day out!
