Touring East and West Sussex in a motorhome

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Day six

An amazing palace

I sit here with bare legs in the sun finishing off the Sunday papers. We have had 19C today. There is the faintest of breezes which wafts the scent of the neighbouring eucalyptus trees across the little field we are camping on.

As the sun sinks it illuminates the little hover flies above the grass and the hundreds of dandelion seed heads drifting around between them, all to the accompanying roar of a spitfire overhead. Add in humming bees and clucking hens behind me and it is a wonderful soundscape this evening.

Our day started with coffee at the Fishbourne Roman Palace Café. Little were we to know then what a surprise we were in for. Suffice to say there are insufficient superlatives to describe this hidden gem.

The sheer scale of the palace is extraordinary. The largest Roman residence north of the Alps by all accounts and built only 30 years after the Roman conquest in AD43.

The surviving mosaics are fascinating, the gardens striking. This, even by Roman standards, was an amazingly wealthy dwelling. The palace design was ahead of its time even then; design, decoration and splendour reflecting the most up to date trends in the Roman Empire at that time with craftsmen bought in from all corners of the Empire to work here.

You can read more about the palace here at https://sussexpast.co.uk/attraction/fishbourne-roman-palace/

Later in the afternoon we cycled up the Centurion Way to grab an ice cream at the little village of West Dean. A short but pretty trail.

Almost forgot - the campsite! Applegarth, a CCC campsite. Easy walk to the city centre but there is a bus stop outside. Level field, well sheltered. Lovely owners. A little road noise but not enough to be an issue. Grey and chemical waste next to the house about a thirty metre walk across the field. Well planted and with some hens and veg gardens to one side, we loved the site. 

A lazy but very informative day. Fascinating stuff.

Postscript:

This evening the clouds clear and I am left with clear skies and a half moon. The moonlight washes out the sky but I spend a couple of chilly hours capturing images of the moon on my telescope using a smartphone holder. My telescope cannot take a DSLR camera sadly and I am considering selling it and buying a portable refractor telescope which I can attach my canon camera to. This will then give me a highly portable imaging rig.

 Some more from Fishbourne: 

And a campsite with the smells of an orchard and cut wood.