Visiting a Friend - looking for destination recommendations

I liked Norwich itself and especially enjoyed the Sainsbury Centre for Visual Arts.

Cambridge is an excellent base. There are some very nice small towns for day tips, including Bury St Edmund, Saffron Walden and Lavenham.

You could of course spend all your time in London, but lodging wouldn't be especially cheap.

I wonder whether seaside towns would be dead in late March/early April.

Will you have a car?

Thanks for this! We will not have a car. I don't think we'll stay in London (maybe one night?) because it is so pricey and we have both spent time there. Certainly will look into the towns you mentioned - thank you!

Seaside towns will be quiet at that time of the year, but if you are blessed with a sunny day, Cromer is easily accessed and well worth a visit from Norwich. I would not stay there in March though.

March is really the wrong time of year to stay on the East Anglian coast. It won't be NYC cold, but it will be cold, wet, windy, and mostly grey skies. The North Sea is pretty brutal and a murky brown for most of the year. You will find numerous Airbnb's in East Anglia and very reasonably priced. I always stay in a cottage when returning to visit family in East Anglia. Wroxham is quite nice, not on the coast but on the broads and very near to Norwich. I would probably avoid Great Yarmouth. Haven't been there for a long time but it always had a reputation of being a gritty kind of town. Cromer is a possibility. While Lavenham and Saffron Walden are lovely they are much further south of Norwich and will be harder to get around without a car.

Norfolk and in general East Anglia isn't the easiest place to explore without a car. So that means walkable to a station with reasonably frequent trains and the acceptance that changes may be necessary, and with a convenient frequent bus nearby.

Is the reasonable AirBnB that father is providing already chosen? If so, where? Given no car it would be very much help to know where you will be basing.

A base within 2 hours of Norwich isn’t going to give you many options of places that have enough going on in March to keep you occupied, as most routes lead to London. The coast will be quiet in March. Southwold and Aldeburgh are the nicest resorts, but they don’t have a train service so getting there would be by train then a bus.

Cambridge is an option. Plenty of colleges to see, The Backs to walk and walking tours.

You really need a car to make the most is seeing the old wool towns such as Lavenham.

Stamford is a pretty town and Burghley House can be visited. Nearby Oakham, Rutland Water and Uppingham are worth visiting.

I no longer use Airbnb in the U.K. if possible as they are very expensive. You will probably find the same property available on many platforms - I find Booking.com, Trip Advisor rentals and VRBO to be better value.