Ipswich Hotels

Once East Anglia's thriving port, famous for its wool, Ipswich is reinventing itself as a modern, stylish place with a new waterfront development, complete with marina. Suffolk's county town remains the ideal destination for exploring Constable country.

Admire late medieval oak-beamed and pargetted houses ("pargetting" is the ancient art of decorative outdoor plasterwork peculiar now to East Anglia), like Ancient House. Christchurch Mansion illustrates living over the ages, and houses, in the Wolsey Art Gallery Gainsboroughs and Constables. Real Constable Country is a stone's throw west at Flatford Mill.

Ipswich Waterfront attracts landlubber visitors and a changing flotilla of boats to the marina. Its regeneration ranges from penthouse flats to the steadily rising building at Cranfields' Mills - from 2008, Dance East's new home. University Campus Ipswich - a collaboration between the Universities of East Anglia and Essex – brings undergraduates to Ipswich in September 2007.

Don't expect to keep your wallet un-opened as you walk down Ipswich's golden mile of shops. Buy typical Suffolk crafts – corn dollies and wool – or delicacies from as far afield as Portugal and Poland.

Your're never far from greenery in Ipswich. Christchurch Park stretches from north of Ipswich's medieval walls: its 400-year-old oaks could tell a story or two! The River Orwell, with its sleek bridge just east of Ipswich, offers fine walking, with Constable's Flatford Mill nearby. Aldeburgh and Southwold are to the east, on the Suffolk coast.

Take in a show at the New Wolsey Theatre, including its annual "rock 'n' roll pantomime. Alternatively head east to Aldeburgh's famous Snape Maltings concert hall, founded by Benjamin Britten, with its annual festivals including the Aldeburgh Proms, every night in August.

Seafood is more than a staple, with Ipswich a stone's throw from the sea. Oysters and fresh fish are the order of the day at new restaurants on the Ipswich Waterfront. Further afield, traditional fish and chips is no tastier than from Aldeburgh's Golden Galleon. Back in town, savour Indian, Thai, Italian and Chinese.

See hundreds of years of history, either walking through the themed rooms (Tudor to Edwardian) at Christchurch Mansion, or at the quayside, with its oak-beamed merchant's houses abutting new apartment blocks by the marina.