A pretty market town just a few miles from the seaside is known for having the “best tapas outside Spain”. Rayleigh, near to the Essex coast, has beautiful beaches nearby and an incredible food scene. It’s only a 15-minute drive from the likes of Shoeburyness, Southend-on-Sea and Leigh-on-Sea.
Rayleigh is in the Rochford District, full of history, where it feels like you’ve stepped back in time. Even though it’s busy, Rayleigh town centre has maintained its old charm. There’s a big street market every Wednesday that started in 1181, according to the Rayleigh Town Council website.
The Wednesday market sells a wide variety of goods including fresh fruit and veg, fish, cakes, pastries, speciality breads, women’s clothing of all sizes, jewellery, groceries, household products, footwear, Avon products, bedding, plants and flowers.
If you want to relax, take a trip to the Rayleigh Windmill and Museum. They fixed up the windmill in 2006, and you can take tours to learn about its past.
One restaurant that keeps on cropping up on lists of Rayleigh’s best is Marco’s Tapas Bar in Rayleigh. This Spanish place serves great tapas, has live music sometimes, and even DJ nights.
The restaurant has received nearly 700 ‘Excellent’ reviews on TripAdvisor, with one boldly claiming that it has the “best tapas outside of Spain”.
The lunchtime tapas menu starts at just £12 and diners can try over 50 different freshly home-cooked tapas dishes from meat to fish and vegetarian, including the chef’s special paella Valencia. You can enjoy these with custom made sangria or a choice from a great selection of wines.
Writing on TripAdvisor, one happy diner said: “Lovely evening with friends Marie and the team give excellent service. Staff friendly, attentive and knowledgeable Great atmosphere and food was amazing as always.”
A second added: “Ten of us went on Saturday for their Tipsy Tapas to celebrate my birthday. We had two hours of bottomless alcohol and incredible food! We had so much fun, the food was delicious, the drinks kept flowing and as always the staff were all incredibly helpful and friendly and just couldn’t do enough for us!
“It was excellent value for money and it really was a brilliant and special way to celebrate my birthday! Thank you so much to the whole team at Marcos, you’re all awesome.”
For families with young children, there are loads of fun activities in the area, like an indoor go-karting stadium, a tenpin bowling alley and a trampoline walk.
If you prefer hiking, there are plenty of beautiful walks both in the countryside or along one of the seven beaches which are within a 10-mile radius of the town.
This story originally appeared on Express.co.uk
