Back to England, back an hour in time, back to the pound sterling. Today was Dover and after the wonderful visits to Ireland, Falmouth, and France, we actually had lower expectations for Dover. The main side trips they offer take you into London, and that was certainly not how we wanted to spend our day. Aside from spending several hours on a bus, as the Paris trips did, we have both spent plenty of time in London. Dover has apparently been hit pretty hard by the poor economy and the town is mostly known for being the terminal for ferries to the continent. We did know, however, that there is a castle of some sort in Dover and it has tunnels that were used during WWII.

So we hopped on the bus that took us to the castle and discovered that Dover Castle is a huge, expansive castle with a fascinating history. It was built in the late 12^th century on the site of an old Roman lighthouse, most of which still remains. The site has always been important to the defense of Britain, from the earliest days when the Romans first landed here, through defending against those pesky French, to WWII. On this day in May it was mostly invaded by many groups of school children since it was a weekday. The little ones in the red jumpers were far more endearing than the French teenagers.

Henry II built large parts of the castle, and it was heavily fortified during the 1800’s at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. At that time, an extensive series of tunnels were built just behind those white cliffs. These tunnels were used at the time for housing soldiers, but in WWII they were used as the secret headquarters during the evacuation of Dunkirk, and then the coastal defense. There was an excellent tour of the war tunnels.

On the castle grounds, we had access to the main castle tower from medieval times, the battlements all around the castle, the WWII gun batteries, the medieval tunnels, and other general cool castle stuff. They had the main castle building furnished and outfitted with displays about what it would have been like during Henry II’s time and it was very well done. We ended up spending 4 hours there, walked extensively, and climbed many, many spiral stone staircases. The walk back to town was down a very steep footpath. Needless to say, we were in need of a good pint by the end of all that.

The White Horse was the perfect solution and after fortifying ourselves with a pint. It seems to be a required stop by anyone who has swum the English Channel. The walls and ceiling are covered by inscriptions of people who have completed it, some of which are relay teams. We had no idea that so many people have accomplished this! It was also a nice place to work on the blog and count our remaining pounds, since we needed to use them up.

Following our liquid sustenance, we forged ahead to find some fish and chips just down the block. We were now able to walk around Dover proper with a little more energy and explore the town some more. It’s not a quaint town but it was still very typically British and we enjoyed our wandering. We eventually found ourselves at the Red Lion and how could we resist a visit? The barkeep directed us to their lovely outdoor area and we really enjoyed giving our legs and feet a break.

Dover was a very pleasant surprise, as was the weather once again. Showers were predicted but we mostly spent the day over the White Cliffs under blue skies.

-T