Suffolk

Any recommendations for things to do in Suffolk, particularly around Southwold/Dunwich?

Places to go, places to eat, places to drink etc ...

Ruined abbey near Dunwich. Orford is a long walk/drive/cycle away but has when I visited two good restaurants (the top pub and the hotel, which is excellent), and another excellent pub at the bottom. You can also visit Orfordness, I think? But possibly not in winter.

Adnams is without question the finest drink known to humanity, and is here at it's finest.

If you're there over new year there is I believe a lighting of paper fire balloons up and down the coast.

The most northerly Martello tower is at Aldeburgh, which also features in MR James' ghost story A Warning to the Curious. (The Michael Hordern/Jonathan Miller adaptation of O Whistle is shot around Dunwich)

The heathland just above Dunwich, is it even called Dunwich Heath?, is fantastic. And the wetlands below it are full of booming bitterns, owls and moorhens and the like - good to visit at twilight).

Great, thank you.

Also if you keep the dark art of Reader of Books, you might want to take The Rings of Saturn by WG Sebald, as well as the aforementioned MR James.

Is Southwold worth a visit or would you stick to Dunwich? (We're there for two nights)

And is Southwold-Dunwich via public transport a possibility? (So the weekend can include plenty of Adnams).

Well, I don't know Southwold v well to be honest. There isn't that much at Dunwich (it's all in the sea!), although crucially there is a pub. I was there over Christmas and New Year, when I went a couple of years ago, (my mum was brought up in Woodbridge nearby) and public transport was extremely haphazard. I ended up walking to Dunwich and back from Aldeburgh, most of the 'back' in the dark, including an extremely unnerving section across the heath and down past Sizewell B.

After that whenever I needed to go anywhere I couldn't walk I ended up just getting minicabs.

Southwold has the Adnam's brewery of course, and there's the foot ferry to Walberswick, which I think is only open in the summer (remember going across it when I was 12 or so), and you'll see the lighthouse.

Actually doing stuff apart from drinking and eating and walking (which I'm usually quite satisfied with) I'm not so sure about. There is plenty of excellent walking though. If it's clear, do go down to the coast at night, the stars were magnificent, and with the winter roar of the ocean the whole thing was quite overwhelming (lol pissed).