Deciding between Dorset and Devon for a south-west sojourn is a hard call. But happily there’s an option within a beach pebble’s throw of both with Lyme Regis just inside Dorset on the Dorset/Devon border, which surely provides the scope for doubling your holiday time if staying at a Lyme Regis campsite or holiday park.
Lyme Regis is nicknamed the Pearl of Dorset and is a gateway town of the Jurassic Coast: it’s one of the best places along the heritage coast for fossil hunting, as might be guessed from a town which has its own fossil festival, a fossil shop and three museums displaying paleontological treasures. Once the fossil haul has been, er, hauled off the beach, there’s lots of scope in standing at the Cobb harbour wall gazing forlornly out to sea like Sarah in The French Lieutenant’s Woman – and, this is a famously literary town overall, you should add reading The French Lieutenant’s Woman and the books of every other author associated with the town in your now-tripled holiday time. Huzzah.
