Family Holidays in Broadstairs, Kent, England

Broadstairs is known as Pearl of the Isles of Thanet. Although it has become one of the best English holiday destination, Broadstairs hasn't always been a holiday resort. Indeed, the history of this nowadays family friendly holiday resort is very ancient (+/- 1000 years). Originally Broadstairs was the fishing side of Saint Peter's entity. Its ancient name was "Bradstow", derived from the chalk staircase carved in the cliff.

While gentleman farmers built seaside residencies (like East Cliff Lodge and Holland House) in the late 1700s, the expansion of Broadstairs really started in the middle 19th century and was highly appreciated by artists and poets, like Dickens. Broadstairs then became one of the most popular English holiday destinations for families.

Source: Broadstairs & St Peter's Town Council

In order to join Broadstairs, English holiday destination, we left Brussels on a Monday morning and took the train to Oostend where we ordered a Jetfoil ticket to Ramsgate, Kent. 90 minutes later, we arrived at Ramsgate and a bus drove us to the station and we took the train to Broadstairs, our holiday destination.

This is where our English holidays started. Broadstairs isn't a too large holiday resort so we could get quickly from the station to the hotel by foot. And, to say the truth, it was a very agreeable walk.

Although there are many types of hotels in Broadstairs, I booked an ensuite double bedroom in a guesthouse recommended by the Thanet District Council. Most guesthouses have a good reputation in England. English guesthouses have a warm atmosphere and are cosy. So, we arrived at the SunnyDene Guesthouse managed by a couple of Irish. They were so kind! We immediately felt like we were in our family. Nowadays I think the SunnyDene has become the Anchor Lodge.

In order to give our English holidays in Broadstairs a particular taste which would become part of our fondest memories, we left our luggage at the guesthouse and directly went out to discover Broadstairs town. The guesthouse is situated right behind the Victoria Parade; which is the main Broadstairs Parade. From the Victoria Parade we had a wonderful view on the whole beach and harbour. Little boy and I spent the entire afternoon on the sunny and warm beach. I have to say that we went to Broadstairs in September and that the weather was particularly beautiful!

Before going back to the guesthouse for dinner, we had a walk on Viking Bay (in direction of Cliftonville and Margate); which allowed us to discover wonderful houses along the way. Many of those houses are hotels and guesthouses.

After the dinner prepared by the guesthouse owners - which, by the way, was excellent - we went back to visit the other part of Broadstairs town. Through Victoria Parade, we saw the wonderful view of Broadstairs that leads to Dumpton Park. I though that Broadstairs was a mini holiday resort; I was wrong. Broadstairs isn't as small as it may look at first sight. For this reason and because summer time shift in England is GMT +1, we had to get back to the guesthouse before nightfall so that we didn't get caught by the dark. As a matter of fact, the sun set soon in the evening.

Back to our room in the guesthouse, we've had funny moments as my son discovered the tea and coffee facilities. This is a service that's entire part of English holidays and that I saw nowhere else than in Great Britain. And so, my son prepared a cup of tea for each of us and turned all our English holiday evenings into a good time. What a funny moment to look at this little guy preparing a drink! We watched TV for a few moments and fell asleep.

Our English holidays in Broadstairs allowed my son to constantly learn new customs. The very next morning, my son would discover the traditional English breakfast! I thought he would only eat a bowl of cereals but no... little boy ordered a complete breakfast: eggs, sausage, tomato beans, potatoes. Guess what! Fifteen years later, he still asks me to prepare an English breakfast on every Sunday morning as a reminder of his wonderful English holidays in Broadstairs!

Among the memories brought by those English holidays, the few hours spent in Dreamland Margate are of those I'll never forget! Although we settled for a while in Broadstairs, we wanted to visit holiday resorts around. And, as I usually do when I travel, I brought my little boy to the next holiday resort; wich, in this instance was Margate and, more particularly Margate's Dreamland Park!

Dreamland is located in Margate, another holiday resort near Broadstairs. Margate is a seaside town bigger than Broadstairs and more popular than our own English holiday resort. Dreamland Margate is an amusement park that is nowadays closed to the public but fifteen years ago*, the park was opened and active. Dreamland's most popular attraction was the Scenic Railway that burned in 2003.

My son wanted to try every machine of Dreamland park. However, when the first machine was put into motion, little boy started screaming "Help!" and didn't stop screaming until the machine stopped and that I took him off of it. He then wanted to try another one and once again, the steward was obliged to stop the machine. He screamed so loud that I dared not look around me and kept my eyes directed towards the ground, until we left Dreamland... After so many years, I laugh at it but at the very moment it happened, I didn't ;)

We left Dreamland and discovered Margate town. My favorite English store is Marks & Spencer, so I spent a great time in Margate's Marks & Spencer store where I bought a bunch of food, decorating items, bedlinen, clothes, etc. Then we went to Margate's local Boots store and, once again, I bought many products that I couldn't find in my country or that are sold only in pharmacies or more expensive than in England.

For the first time of my life, I ate at a Burger King - there are Mac Donalds and Quicks in Belgium but no Burger King. In all honesty, I don't like either of those fast-food services but my little boy did so, in order to put a veil on his awful Dreamland experience, I sacrificed myself and we ate hamburgers. At the end of the afternoon, we took the bus to go back to Broadstairs.

* Dreamland will probably reopen in 2011.

While I loved Broadstairs very much, but I woudln't have enjoyed those English holidays if we didn't go visit Canterbury! There was a bus stop round the corner of the guesthouse street and it brought us to Canterbury. We got back to this wonderful town several times during our stay as well as during other English holidays as we fell in love with Canterbury too.

We entered Canterbury through the gate located next to the bus stop (see the photo gallery) and I absolutely had to take a photo of one of the marvelous Red English public phones. From Canterbury's entry gate, we went to the well-known and most beautiful Canterbury Cathedral. My little boy enjoyed the visit so much that he would get on each picture I took.

After the visit of the Canterbury Cathedral, we made a step back in history and went to the former St. Margaret's Church to look at and listen to the fantastic recreation of the Canterbury Tales; the audio guide is provided in several different languages and this trip in the Medieval times is a real gem. This is the must-place-to-go when visiting Canterbury. I highly recommend it!

Back to the 20th century. Time had come to have a bite. We chose a "French Cafe" in Canterbury main street and ate smoked salmon. Instead of the common belief, I always liked to eat in England and never found something that wasn't tasteful. Indeed, I don't eat everything but this applies to my own traditional food too.

The afternoon was devoted to Canterbury shopping; which is a compulsive disorder that took me while in the town. Oooooch! My wallet! This is where I started my small houses collection. I bought almost all the houses I found, really nice houses that open and display the inside of a post office, a toy store, an antique shop, a windmill...

On the way to the bus stop, we enjoyed looking at the small boats on the Sour River that crosses the center of Canterbury as well as a huge number of wonderfully restored houses from the past centuries.

Ah those fantastic English holidays in Broadstairs made my son's dreams come to reality! When younger, my son loved trains with a passion and would read, look, and watch anything related to trains. And so, Broadstairs provided us with the Crampton Tower Museum.

Thomas Russel Crampton, a well-known railway engineer, was born in Broadstairs and the holiday resort celebrated Mr Crampton with a really nice museum located in Broadstairs Tower. We spent a long time looking at Crampton's drawings, models, awards, train sets that the guide put into action just for my son.

Train sets aren't my cup of tea but for as long as my little boy was happy, I was too. We ended the visit buying a few "Thomas and Friends" sets. Right after the visit, we went to Woodsworth and bought a few items (food and drink) so that whenever Broadstairs' weather would turn our English holidays into a typical English life, we would have anything necessary to watch TV on hand ;)

There is one place you owe yourself to see during English holidays in Broadstairs: Dickens' house!

First let me detail the rest of our English holidays. We went to Ramsgate, the holiday resort where we arrived by boat earlier, and I took some pictures of my little boy on Royal Parade. Naturally, we didn't forget to visit Ramsgate Marks & Spencer store as well as many other shops.

Our typical English holidays in Broadstairs brought us to Cliftonville and Westgate on Sea; which are located next to our adorable holiday resort. We also went to see the Windmill located on the road to Canterbury, got back to the beach, visited as many bays as possible - there are many of them just Broadstairs. And we also enjoyed long walks in Broadstairs town, admiring the wonderful English houses, guesthouses and hotels, like the Albion Hotel Broadstairs or Grand Mansions; which was formerly the Grand Hotel of Broadstairs.

Another great activity we stuck to during our stay in this English holiday resort was... tea time! No way to miss this great British tradition!

Our stay in Broadstairs was coming to an end and we hadn't been to Bleak House yet. So we decided to make a profit from a rainy day that would have kept us off the holiday resort beach or even Broadstairs town itself to visit Dicken's house and museum. Bleak House is a wonderful house, where Dickens' universe is recreated. The house is located on top of the cliff so you can see it from any place you are in Broadstairs. This is also the house where Dickens wrote David Copperfield.

This day, the weather was quite stormy in Broadstairs, therefore we took some pictures on the bay with the angry sea behind my son. We really enjoyed the time we spent to go to Bleak House no matter the weather.

After Bleak House we would want to visit Dickens Museum; on Victoria Parade. Broadstairs is really proud of all the celebrities who were born and lived in there, and Dickens Museum is another tribute to the popular writer.

I didn't remember that people would live in Bleak House but it seems that a family actually lives in the house that was ravaged by a fire, but they work hard and fund themselves the restoration of Dickens' House.

Our English holidays in Broadstairs have come to an end and time has come to get back to Belgium. We thus took the train from Broadstairs to Ramsgate and then the ferry in which we spent 4 wonderful hours sailing the North Sea. Sadly, while the weather was splendid when we left Ramsgate, we ended up dealing with a storm and the ferry took the Channel to get back to Oostend; which allowed us to see the French Coast along the way.

The bad weather obliged us to stay in the inside of the boat for the most part of the travel and my son enjoyed three hours in the playground provided by the company. We also had a lunch and listened to the music.

But since we enjoyed our English holidays is Broadstairs so much and longed for a new family holiday break in England, we crossed the sea once again on Guy Fawkes. Thus, in November the very same year, along with a few friends, we went back to Broadstairs. Even though my teenager nowadays states that he never liked England, I'm pretty sure and know for a fact that he enjoyed every minute spent during those English holidays in Broadstairs. See the pictures... This is really a place I and my son enjoy to be.