Me in Canterbury, Kent

Maybe this is not the same for everywhere, but here when you say "England", only one thing comes to people's minds: London!
It's not like Italy, which has Florence, Rome and Venice as its popular cities. People go to these three cities at one journey, but when it comes to England, they generally prefer seeing London and nothing else - which I didn't like at all.
For the last 5 years -or even more- I kept begging my family to buy a holiday package which includes only the Lake District in England. Even before seeing London, I wanted to see the country life over there.

Well, now LUCKILY as one of my friends from the secondary school with whom I used to study together lives in Rye, East Sussex this year. She's met an English guy 5 years ago, and been married to him for the last 3 years, but until the last months of the last year, they preferred living in Istanbul as they both love the warm weather more.

Now they're in England for career development, and that's been a great chance for me to see both my friend and the lovely country life of England!

As she wants to see more of London -of which I'm fed up with really-, we made a plan: 3 days in London, 3 days in the rural area (which are Rye, Canterbury and Tenterden).
So that's how it started!
Very unluckily the terrible weather had us frozen the first days of the trip and we eventually found ourselves running between the attractions we wanted to see in London! And veeery luckily, the last three days of our holiday was much much better, so we had plenty of time to explore the rural areas.

To start with, I will summarise what we've done in London and what we'done in other parts of the country.

First day, Tuesday - We met in our hotel, which was Best Western Paddington, that I would definitely recommend! Good service, quite luxurious rooms (a bit tiny though), clean, quiet and everything we were looking for! After leaving our luggages, basically followed the programme: Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens, lunch at Hyde Park, Science Museum, Natural History Museum, Kensington High Street, Holland Park, Notting Hill and back to hotel - Dinner at Leicester Square.

The second day, Wednesday - Sherlock Holmes Museum (for which we were a bit late, so bought the tickets and visited again the next day), Oxford Street for shopping, lunch in Oxford Street, picking up our London Pass cards from Leicester and then National Gallery - shopping again (English books this time, from Waterstones) and back to the hotel - dinner at Leicester with a friend from London.

The third day, Thursday - Sherlock Holmes Museum-Baker Street, Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey, London Eye, sandwiches for lunch(take away), London Cruise Tour, Tower of London(Inside the castle), Tower Bridge(Tower Bridge Exhibition), run to the hotel, take the luggages, check out and go to Sevenoaks - my friend's husband picked us up from there and we headed to East Sussex... That night we're staying at the Corner House, where actually my friend lives. The Corner House was a very very lovely place with 5-6 rooms, 2 horses, a big big garden and a little lovely lake - the Turner family owns it and has been running it as a Bed&Breakfast for the last 30 years. They are a very lovely family and I loved to spend time with them a lot - their rooms are very nice, yellow, pink, blue, colourful and clean - you have everything you need inside... and more. So I would definitely recommend you to stay there when you visit the town Rye!

The fourth day, Friday - Canterbury, Kent - we had to use the train to go there, spent a few hours around, but didn't have time for another cruise tour on the river. Dinner at home with the Turner family (Their traditional Fish&Chips Friday).

The fifth day, Saturday - Tenterden, Kent, and back to Rye, explore the little town. (Nice weather, tourists around, everything was perfect on that day!) Dinner in Rye, and a night out in Rye (Go to the George Pub/and another pub later on) - Drunk at the end of the night!

The sixth day, Sunday, go to the woods in Rye and to the Camber Sands Beach later on (when the water is not up!), lunch at home, get ready for the train which goes to Heathrow Airport.

Busy holiday it was! And I enjoyed the last three days more to be honest! London was exhausting for sure, but Rye and the others were great as we had too many chances to just chill out, long hours of eating, drinking tea and exploring the environment with no rush!

When my friend asked me which one I liked the best, my answer was Canterbury for some reason. But I think now it is Rye, with it's woods, beach and shopping area - little, traditional and warm - just as I like it!