Hitchin
From World travel guide
Hitchin is a town with 30,000 inhabitants 35 miles north of London in the county of Hertfordshire. Hitchin is an old market town first mentioned 1,000 years ago.
Contents |
Understand
Hitchin is a small historic market town in the north of Hertfordshire. It is twinned with the German town Bingen and the French town Nuits St Georges. Hitchin has its own character and several historic buildings can be found around the town centre, historic market place, Bancroft, Sun Street and Hermitage Road. Although this part of Hertfordshire is fairly heavily populated there is still plenty of scenery with rolling hills, lots of small villages and single track lanes to be found.
Get in
By Car
- A1 Stevenage -> 3 miles to Hitchin on A602
- M1 Luton -> 10 miles to Hitchin on A505
By Train
Half-hourly trains run to and from London, Stevenage, Cambridge and Peterborough.
By Plane
The nearest main airport is Luton Airport about 15 minutes drive from Hitchin. Heathrow Airport is a 1 hour drive otherwise about 1.5 hours by train via London and the Heathrow Express.
Get around
See
- Historic market square
- Bancroft
- Hermitage Road
- Sun Street
Also in the area the is Knebworth (historic house and grounds) and Whipsnade zoo
Do
Buy
- B&Q Do it yourself (DIY) centre, Nightingale Road
- Clement Joscelyne expensive furniture and china,
- Colanders nice and expensive kitchenware,
- Early Learning Center toys, Bancroft
- Hawkins of Hitchin cloth for everybody and a toys for kids
- Millets outdoor activities, Market Place
- Oxfam nice charity shop in front of St. Mary's church
- Picture framer the obvious thing, Sun street
- Sainsburys groceries, Bancroft
- Waitrose groceries,
Eat
There is a good selection of mid-range places to eat in Hitchin including pubs, cafes and the usual range of cuisines such as Italian, Indian, Chinese and Thai. Anyone looking for Japanese food should look further south to St Albans:
- Just 42 English restaurant Sun Street, £20-30 person
- Pizza Piazza 87 Bancroft, small nice pizzeria, £10 person
- Mirage 56 Bancroft, meditaranian food, spanish, italian ... mix of everything, 20 -30£ person, the wine can be occasionly a little bit to warm, but the friendly staff will, bring some ice to chil it, unfortunaltely they wanted to put the ice in the wine.
- Bar Meze 35 Bucklersbury, Greek restaurant, £15-20 person
- Mandarin Gourmet 26 Sun Street, chinese restaurant
- Regent Cottage 11C High Street, chinese restaurant on the first floor, one of the best in the area
- Pizza Express 12 Market place, 10-15£ person, besitde the fact that this restaurant belongs to chain it is well managed and serves good food round the clock.
- Zizzi Sun street, very good pizzeria with a large wood fired pizza oven, £10-20 person
- No12 Bridge street, very nice english restaurant with friendly staff, a selection of very nice wines, and novel english cuisine, £30+ person for a 3 course menu. Among the best restaurants in town.
- Sirichai Bancroft, nice Thai restaurant £25+ person for a 3 course menu.
Drink
- Aussie bar Bom Bora 107a/b Bancroft with big drinks
Sleep
There are a number of acceptable small hotels and bed & breakfast type places to stay in and around Hitchin.
Get out
- Cambridge, 30 miles from Hitchin is one of Englands famous academic cities.
- London is 35 miles south of Hitchin and can be reached via the motorway A1 or by Wagn train.
- Luton is ten miles west of Hitchin and is a airtravel hub.
- Stevenage is three miles east of Hitchin.
External links
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