Monday - Dover Castle

Hello amigos!

Guess it’s that time again. CATCH-UP TIME! Got a bit to write so I shall get started. Just ahead’s up, I shall be writing as if it were the day stated to help me keep my thoughts and memories straight.

Monday July 30:

Today I when I woke up at 6am (yes, I’m a crazy tourist who actually rose with the sun. Well actually about 2 hours after the sun but still that’s fairly early right?) I instantly checked the forecast. FINALLY a sunny day had come, so guess where I went? That’s right, Dover Castle.

It was about a 2 hour train trip from Victoria Station but it was a pretty one. For the first time, as I passed by the English countryside it was not being rained on. I got to see a whole new side of beauty. Amazing On the way to and from Dover, I actually could see Canterbury Cathedral. Pretty cool stuff :)

When I arrived at the station, I asked the first staff person I could find if she knew where the castle was. She had no idea but said to walk in a general direction. Luckily just around the scorner from the station was a sign pointing to the direction of the tourist information centre so I went there first to receive my free map. Thank goodness it was a free map, It was missing almost all the street names and pointed out only where attractions were. Thank goodness the lady working at the center provided me with more detail than the map did! As I was walking towards the castle, I passed by this GIGANTIC television they had set-up in the center of Dover so people could watch the Olympics. At the time, no events had started so I just took a few pictures, and continued on my way.

The walk was going pretty well and then I reached the steep killer hill. This hill made the RB steps at BYU look like an easy walk. Since I had a random burst of energy I started jogging up the hill. Don’t ask me why I did, frankly I don’t know why myself. About 3 minutes later I gave up. Afterwards I was thinking, “Holy cow I’m so lazy, I should have tried to jog for at least 5 minutes.” All of a sudden, a huge line of cars zoomed past me to go up. Didn’t feel so lazy after they had passed me.

I bought my ticket and proceeded up the hill to enter the might fortress. First thing I decided to see first were the War tunnels that were used during WWII. Sadly, a majority of the tunnels were closed off or not safe to go through. But they still had a nice exhibition to walk through. It was very small with sections about media propaganda, trying on uniforms (only for kids. Bummer), views to see out to the ocean, uniforms throughout the years, and – my favorite part – they had these telephone like booths were you could hear recordings from people from that time share their stories or actual BBC broadcasts. My favorite broadcast was the homecoming one. After listening to the heart-breaking stories, I’ll admit I got swept away and got all excited like the people in the recording were when they saw (in my case I heard) the soldiers come home. I got a nice warm fuzzy feeling inside.

After going through the tunnels, I went up to Admiral’s look-out and got to see the famous white cliffs of Dover. Of course, the moment I get to the top of the look-out a numerous gusts of wind come and (I’m not exaggerating) almost blow me off my feet. Yup, the view was just that mind-blowingly beautiful. I managed to get some pictures of the cliffs and then I went inside to look at this look-out. Instead of reading all the adult fact sheets, I spent most of my time doing the kid’s activities. I’m such a kid at heart :P My favorite one was trying to identify friend and foe ships and planes. That was entertaining.

I proceeded with walking around the Castle as I made my way to the Great Tower/Keep. I passed by lots of families having picnics and enjoying the sun (kids running around and some adults taking naps). When I entered the inner circle, there were two knights training little ones in the ways of jousting and swordsmanship. It was so adorable! After watching for a few minutes, I went inside the tower and started climbing up. Long story short, it was very nice and a medieval version of Windsor Castle. Along the way, the knights mentioned earlier took the knight trainees up to meet Henry II to be knighted. So I followed them up and watched as Henry II quizzed them and knighted them. Now I’ve seen Henry II and VIII! Awesome.

I then went across the courtyard to see the Princess of Wales’ Royal Regiment Museum. Very similar to the National Maritime museum but smaller and had this cool ship sailing section. After I exited, It started to rain, of course. So I made my way back to the station since I was  content with all I saw and experienced.

That’d be the end of my Dover adventures. Yup. So I’ll start working on the next one now.

Take care!