Dover: Second Chances

Our summer cruise through the Baltic Sea, departed from Dover, England, so although we didn't board the boat until Sunday we headed to the UK on Friday afternoon in order to spend Saturday in Canterbury, correcting an oversight my teenage self made nearly 20 years ago.

We took the ferry across the Channel from Dunkirk, way way way cheaper than the Channel Tunnel and this way, D didn't have to drive and the boys could frolic on the ferry rather than being cooped up in the car.  Including the crossing (but not the time change), the trip took about 6.5 hours.   C was convinced for the first half of the ferry ride that he was on "Mickey's Boat" and he was distressed that Mickey himself was nowhere to be found.  [just imagine how much more impressive Mickey's actual boat was for him when we pulled up to the port Sunday afternoon.]

We spent Friday and Saturday night in a Holiday Inn in Ashford, about halfway between Dover and Cantebury.  During cruise/summer sea season, hotel rooms in Dover itself are as scarce as they are pricey, so either book way ahead or be prepared to sleep in the surrounding towns. 

Saturday we headed to the Medieval mecca of Canterbury.  I spent several hours in Canterbury in 1991 as a quick side trip between Calais and London with a tour group of high school students.  We didn't get to tour the Cathedral because it was closed for an event, and I made the mistake of not buying a copy of Cantebury Tales, even though the thought crossed my mind.  Fast forward a few years: I declared myself an English major in an undergraduate English department heavy in Medieval, Rennaisance, and British Literature classes. Canterbury Tales ended up on a class reading list at least three or four times.  Each semester I studied it, I wished I had bought a copy while I was in Cantebury--not necessarily a leather-bound, fancy copy. Heck it could have been the same Penguin translated copy in the campus book store, I simply wanted a copy that came from Canterbury.

BUT, unless you're a serious British history student or have enough time in your London itinerary to make Canterbury a day-trip, it's not really a destination of itself. I doubted we'd  get back.  While the other members of the family might have preferred spending Saturday exploring Dover or climbing castles, I invoked mama's privilege and they never seriously got a vote. We were doing Canterbury on Saturday and they could like it or not.  

I quickly ducked into the Cathedral while D and the boys walked the street; then I found a bookstore to buy my copy of the Tales, then we picknicked and walked the old wall that surrounds the city learning more about Medieval Canterbury's history before heading back to the hotel to let B grab a nap.

That evening we journeyed to the seaside resort town of Folkestone. Folkestone's heyday was during Victorian times but in recent decades the town has revitalized its sea front and restored a few of the old hotels.  It's easy to stand on the sea wall,  close your eyes, and imagine the promenade filled with hoop skirts and parasols as the turn-of-the-century elite took the air and spent the evenings strolling the garden paths to see and be seen.
 

The next morning we lazily made our way to the port, stopping to pick up a few things we had forgotten and took these pictures of the famous White Cliffs of Dover and the Dover Castle from the boat while we frolicked on deck.   The plan was to hit Dover Castle the morning we arrived back in port before heading home to Germany, but both kiddos were worn out from two weeks of playing hard, and turns out B was fighting the sniffles, so rather than  kill the close to two hours before the Castle opened, we skipped it and got an earlier ferry back across the Channel.   The Castle looked grand. All summer they have special performances and festivals on the grounds.  The day we were to go,  they were performing Shakespeare's  Tempest on the grounds followed by evening fireworks.  Would have loved to have hung around for it.  Maybe we will............   20 years from now, on Dover's third go 'round.