Travelodge now charge for parking but don't inform you. We had booked to stay near Stansted airport at Great Dunmow - no mention on the booking confirmation - and when we arrived late at night there were no signs and reception didn't mention it. Next morning we found a parking ticket for £20 slapped on the windscreen. Complaints to customer services just received the brush-off reply that the parking area is nothing to do with Travelodge and run by a separate company. This makes for an expensive stay. Beware!!

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A country house hotel with an amazing fitness centre. Fab old country house down a long driveway. Fresh flowers in the entrance hall and friendly staff.

Big rooms with giant beds and nice cotton bedlinen. And smart flatscreen TVs with integral DVD player. But you will need to bring/buy your own as the selection downstairs is dire. Nice reading room too, but again, would advise own books, unless you are keen to read musty mid-century non-classics. Breakfast was good (though served only between 7-9am in the week).

What really made this place for us was the fitness facilities. Genuinely friendly staff meant a really great atmosphere. Good gym (not huge, but decent range of equipment- soon to be upgraded and enlarged apparently). Fantastic big 20m pool open until 9pm and lit sympathetically. Large sauna and steam room.

And, as well as grass tennis courts they have real tennis courts. Very odd, but the two that they have at Prested Hall represent about 1/40th of the world's total. The current no. 2 and no. 8 play there and you can bag a free lesson!
We paid £184 for two nights mid-week which seemed really reasonable.

Prested Hall, Feering, Colchester, Essex CO5 9EE
01376 573300
www.prested.co.uk

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New head chef Marcus Verberne is making a name for himself at the White Hart, a restaurant and historic coaching inn deep in the English countryside in the picturesque riverside village of Nayland, Suffolk.

The hotel has wonderful cosy bedrooms and is an idyllic, peaceful place to stay - especially if you can book one of their incredible value packages.

We stayed on the White Hart’s £149 a la carte dinner, bed and breakfast package for two and we liked it so much that we’ve already booked again. Breakfast next day was oh-so-prettily served and delicious. Given the quality, it’s amazing value for two people – and we can’t wait to go back.

Marcus, who has cooked for plenty of A-list celebrities at famous London restaurants The Ivy, J. Sheekey’s and Le Caprice, is causing something of a local sensation with the way he has transformed the menu in such a short time.

The White Hart has become 'the' place among locals who enjoy fine, gourmet dining at sensible prices. New Zealander Marcus serves seriously good, locally sourced ingredients and cooks them simply, but with a twist, to bring out the flavours.

For example, we loved his pan-fried John Dory with local West Mersea sea vegetables and an oyster butter sauce because it packed in so many different flavours from the sea. And he gathers the sea vegetables himself! The beef comes from nearby Dedham Vale and the chickens locally from Suffolk. Marcus also grows his own herbs and spices and salmon is smoked on the premises. Even the fresh shell-on walnuts, served with the cheeseboard, come from a tree in the hotel gardens. This is food and hospitality like it should be.

High Street, Nayland, Colchester CO6 4JF
Telephone; 01206 263382
E-mail: reservations@whitehart-nayland.co.uk
Website: www.whitehart-nayland.co.uk

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The chips are out of this world and the service is friendly!

124 Church Road, Tiptree CO5 0AB
The village of Tiptree is around 10 miles from Colchester.

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The Company Shed serves real Colchester and Mersea oysters in a semi-derelict shed.

Bring your own bread and drink, as you will get nothing but seafood there...

129 Coast Road, West Mersea, Colchester, CO5 8PA.
Tel: 01206 382700

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We like to go to Colchester Zoo. We really love the baby elephants. It's a nice zoo because the enclosures are bigger than other zoos. Feeding the elephants is fun; they like to eat carrots and apples. There are lots of breeds of animals like leopards, monkeys and zeedonks. There is a playground with a cool climbing frame. We like to take a picnic which we share with our cousins George and Lucas.

From Robin Odell (age 9) and Lucy Odell (age 6).

www.colchester-zoo.com

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