The brand-new England National Park is a suggestive invitation to know the most natural side of this space that meets picture small villages, hills for horseback riding or cycling and vertiginous cliffs.
South of England, about 160 kilometers from Mill City is South Downs, the new family member of the spectacular British National Parks has just joined the list. In this magical place, which stretches from St. Catherine’s Hill, Hampshire County, to Beachy Head in East Sussex, have witnessed major British writers such as Jane Austen, author of titles such as Pride and Prejudice or Sense and Sensibility, who lived in Chawton, the edge of the dunes of Hampshire, and is buried in Winchester Cathedral, or Virginia Woolf. But magic has its shadows, as they have become perhaps the most spectacular spot, the cliffs of Beachy Head, in a landscape to commit suicide.
Whether to cross it on foot, horseback or bicycle, views of fields and can see the coast of rolling hills are fabulous, especially the South Downs Way, the old cattle route that crosses from side to side park and that is the main path of the more than 3,000 kilometers marked it gathers. To get an idea of this space and high plains, populated only by sheep grazing and where the wind blows hard, should go at least four of the 160 total miles that stretch between Eastbourne and Winchester and takes Buster Hill, Hampshire Ditchling Beacon its greatest heights.
At the western end is the historic city of Winchester, the capital of King Alfred the Great, rich rolling hills, small forests and the water meadows are a haven for birds and a nice place for family outing ends week. Just a couple of kilometers from the city is the hill of St. Catherine, which encompasses a wide range of plants and flowers.
Another place worth a stop is the town of Amberley, where people can visit the Amberley Working Museum, an outdoor museum set in an estate of 15 hectares where some craftsmen show their work in traditional style. And, an hour from Brighton, Alfriston, in the valley of the River Cuckmere. It is a beautiful example of English medieval village with its typical shops and curious places to take tea with homemade cakes to the English style or taste the cheese, ham, local pies.
Among the curiosities of the South Downs National Park The Long Man of Wilmington, a curious figure of nearly 70 feet high sculpted Windover Hill, about 20 kilometers from the town of Eastbourne, and is one of the two figures anthropomorphic England, along with the Giant of Cerne Abbas. Around this schematic figure dating from the seventeenth century, a slim man holds in his hands what looks like two sticks and spears and, seen from above seems to be excessively long, some festivals are celebrated the pagan calendar. But the possibilities do not end here because in this privileged natural area, with one of the best unspoiled coastline of Britain, there are also places to watch birds, play a number of outdoor activities … and many more things you can imagine.