Castle Tours and Canterbury Tales
Sep. 28th, 2003 03:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiralamouseWARNING: VERY LONG ENTRY
So, you lucky people get to hear Kirala's Review of Canterbury and Dover, the Whirlwind Tours. If my dearly beloved sister should read this, please check whether I've remembered to tell everyone else at home about it. There's so many things going on and I'm sure to forget several.
DOVER -
Arrived at 11:30 or so on the 9:11 train from Victoria station. Have just realized as I type this which train I took; I suppose I should be glad it incurred no terrorist attention. After a little confusion in directions, we hiked up to Dover Castle, arriving there about 12:10. There we decided to wait for one of our friends (not knowing that you have to VALIDATE a BritRail pass before travelling, she'd hung out while we were getting tickets and then as we got to the gate she got turned away. Had to catch the next train.) Anyway, after eating lunch and chilling, the rest of our group decided to go check out the Secret WWII Tunnels Underneath Dover Castle; I decided to wait for our friend. So, between 12:30 and 12:50 I sat around, took some pics, read a bit, all sitting on a stone wall with a lovely view of the village and the sea, but rather deserted. Then, since the next train should have been only half an hour after ours, I gave up and went to join the rest.
On the way to the Secret Underground Tunnels, I met up with our late friend who had come in search of me, to say she'd gotten there half an hour ago and everyone else was heading for the tour of the tunnels. Felt Rather Put Out but decided it was all for the best; the ringleader of the rest has no patience for stragglers and I'd expected it anyway. Gave longing glance at the medieval part of the castle and followed down to the tunnels, to discover that the 1:20 tour was filled but we could take the 1:30 tour. In the meantime, grabbed a ridiculously overpriced sandwich and bottle of water (£3.85 together, which is about $6.00) and browsed the tourist shop.
The tunnel tours were pretty cool, I must admit, although I thought it a little cruel that they allowed no photography. I also think I would have gone nuts being treated in a hospital in tunnels which looked and smelled exactly like the chalk tunnels they were; still, I guess you didn't care as much about that as saving your skin. Also interesting was the "Room With A View With A Queue" - despite the fact that most of the staff working in the tunnels were female, there was only one women's restroom -- but it also had one of the very few windows to fresh air & sunlight. So it would be extremely popular, and knowing males, probably for more than one reason...
Immediately after, Our Fearless Leader and the rest were ready to go to Canterbury. I, on the other hand, hadn't had as much time to explore, but didn't want to hold everyone else up, so I decided to stay while everyone else went. We agreed that we'd meet at the entrance to Canterbury Cathedral at 4:30. This time, we decided on a fail-safe: if we didn't find one another by 4:45, split and find our own way back. This decided, the motley crew departed, leaving me on the surprisingly quiet sunny hillside outside the tunnels.
It was gorgeous - sunny, a brisk breeze, low 60's, clouds chasing each other across the sky. I hiked up to the Admiral's Lookout, from which location one can see France (although London, sadly, was well out of range, disappointing my childish hopes of being able to say "I see London, I see France." Oh well -- I've seen London, I've seen France, dirty thoughts have had their chance.) :-) That disappointment set aside, the Channel was almost blue, the verdure atop the Cliffs emerald, and the famous Cliffs themselves were gleaming white. Got a lovely photograph to be posted at next opportunity. I wandered outside the medieval part for a while, but as it was 3:10 and I didn't know the way back to the train station, didn't know the way to the Canterbury Cathedral from THAT train station, didn't know when I could catch the next half-hour train ride there... I decided it would be wiser to start down the hill. Fortunately, a nice lady at the ticket booth was able to give me directions to the station, where I arrived at promptly 3:35 PM, to discover the next train left at 16:06. I'd just missed the 15:23, and wondered how many other tourists were taken aback by the sudden appearance of military time. So I sat around and read my book for school and berated myself for not checking the times, as I could have had more fun exploring Henry II's castle with Henry VIII's refurbishings. Oh well. At 3:59 (by my old-fashioned 12-hour watch), the train pulled in, and departed promptly at 4:06, despite my mental urgings for it to hurry up, hurry up, let's go, let's go. They need to check the telepathy receptors on that thing. Lucky for me, it was a direct train, which meant no irritating time-consuming stops, and at 4:29 we arrived safely in
CANTERBURY -
Understandably I was in a bit of a hurry, not wanting to travel alone and having 16 minutes in which to discover and walk to the cathedral. Fortunately, Canterbury is wonderfully tourist friendly, in a custom which apparently dates back to the Normans. They provided a convenient wall around 1100 called the Dane John which, once connected by bridge to the train station, provides a lovely scenic ancient pathway directly from the point of arrival to the heart of the town, well within view of the cathedral. I must admit, I'm impressed by a tourism bureau which can provide such luxuries. I recommend that London install a genuine medieval wall from Victoria Station to Westminster Abbey. Better yet, Dover ought to install a genuine medieval lift/elevator to the castle...
Okay, having traversed the entire length of the Dane John, I found myself footsteps away from an old, old city colorfully decked out for markets and tourists. It was 4:35, so I didn't have time to enjoy them, but I was reassured by the sight of the great cathedral over that building -- wait, where did it go?
I still don't know how three-story buildings can mask a giant tower like that - geometry and line-of-sight can be SO counterintuitive - but fortunately I had only a short distance to go, not enough to mix up even my primitive sense of direction. Duck down a dark alleyway that seemed to be going in the right direction (please don't let me get lost) and there I was at the front door, with five minutes to spare...! And no friends in sight.
So, I knew the cathedral was closed for an investiture, but I decided to look and see whether they'd wrangled their way inside. Was shooed by a doorkeeper to get WELL aside, the investiture people were in a procession halfway down the looooooong aisle to come out RIGHT WHERE WE WERE. Cool! But where were my friends? Then I spotted them straggling through the gate I'd just entered - they couldn't see me - so I darted across the way to join them just moments before the procession came out. They were so busy taking pics they didn't see me til I tapped one on the shoulder. They were happy to see me, I think (am going to assume Our Fearless Leader is merely not a people person; I don't think I'm so offensive as to merit that kind of dismissal by a friendly person). We then found that the public was being allowed inside.
Wow. That's all I have to say. St. Paul's suffers seriously from far too much renovation going on; Canterbury suffers none. I saw the place where Thomas a Beckett was martyred, the courtyard in the cloisters where he's buried; I saw the place where his shrine used to be (before Henry VIII had it destroyed; Henry II had him killed; both the kings majorly associated with Dover Castle had Issues with the poor guy. Tom just can't get a break from Harrys.) I saw the grave of Edward the Black Prince of Wales, who figures into legend sufficiently to interest me. Henry IV (gotta catch up on my Shakespeare). And that's just the historical stuff. The really amazing thing was the artistry of this gorgeous old cathedral. St. Paul's beauty is in architectural lines and the mosaics; Canterbury has even more gorgeous grand Gothic architecture and beautiful, beautiful, intricate stained glass - so plentiful that I think every one of its innumerable windows is supposed to have stained glass, but the centuries and wars have destroyed some. Even in twilight, there was enough light coming in to illuminate the lovely scenes. No pics yesterday, but I'm definitely going back - maybe during the festival in October. In other news, was reassured of place in group when Fearless Leader came to chat one-on-one about the beauty of the church.
THE TRAIN RIDE HOME
Gee, you'd think this would be uneventful - but when we arrived at Faversham, to our confusion the conductor was announcing that we had to switch trains to get to London Victoria - and had moments in which to do so. We'd all laid out all our things for the trip, so repacking was frantic. I was slowest and got left behind as everyone else rushed to the train - but since I'm always slowest and am usually behind, if only by a few steps, no one noticed til after they'd settled in. Lucky for me, I managed to shovel everything back in my bag and switch trains.
I immediately regretted it. First, I'd gotten in the wrong car (not train), so my friends were not in evidence in any of the second-class cars in the area, and I didn't want to venture through first-class. Second, this train was vastly inferior to the previous one in comfort/cleanliness/good repair etc, and I was beginning to suspect that the only difference between the trains was how long they'd take to get to London, not whether they'd get there -- and by this time, I was tired enough to welcome a long train ride. Third, my car smelled distinctly of cigarette smoke, some kids were chattering, there was a greasy shifty-looking guy directly opposite, and someone's cellphone was beeping.
Lucky for me, my friends noticed, and Our Fearless Leader came back to hunt for me and brought me to the rest of the group, in a slightly more comfortable area with no greasy bums and no cigarette smoke and no noisy kids, although there was another cell phone. And There Was Much Rejoicing. And then we settled in, dozed off in the warm car until we got back to London, and proceeded home without incident.
And That Was My Weekend Out. This has been another Kirala Epic brought to you by
British Railways
Dover Castle
Canterbury Cathedral
Our Fearless Leader
The League Against Greasy Bums
and
No Contributions from Viewers Like You; Contributions Welcome
So, you lucky people get to hear Kirala's Review of Canterbury and Dover, the Whirlwind Tours. If my dearly beloved sister should read this, please check whether I've remembered to tell everyone else at home about it. There's so many things going on and I'm sure to forget several.
DOVER -
Arrived at 11:30 or so on the 9:11 train from Victoria station. Have just realized as I type this which train I took; I suppose I should be glad it incurred no terrorist attention. After a little confusion in directions, we hiked up to Dover Castle, arriving there about 12:10. There we decided to wait for one of our friends (not knowing that you have to VALIDATE a BritRail pass before travelling, she'd hung out while we were getting tickets and then as we got to the gate she got turned away. Had to catch the next train.) Anyway, after eating lunch and chilling, the rest of our group decided to go check out the Secret WWII Tunnels Underneath Dover Castle; I decided to wait for our friend. So, between 12:30 and 12:50 I sat around, took some pics, read a bit, all sitting on a stone wall with a lovely view of the village and the sea, but rather deserted. Then, since the next train should have been only half an hour after ours, I gave up and went to join the rest.
On the way to the Secret Underground Tunnels, I met up with our late friend who had come in search of me, to say she'd gotten there half an hour ago and everyone else was heading for the tour of the tunnels. Felt Rather Put Out but decided it was all for the best; the ringleader of the rest has no patience for stragglers and I'd expected it anyway. Gave longing glance at the medieval part of the castle and followed down to the tunnels, to discover that the 1:20 tour was filled but we could take the 1:30 tour. In the meantime, grabbed a ridiculously overpriced sandwich and bottle of water (£3.85 together, which is about $6.00) and browsed the tourist shop.
The tunnel tours were pretty cool, I must admit, although I thought it a little cruel that they allowed no photography. I also think I would have gone nuts being treated in a hospital in tunnels which looked and smelled exactly like the chalk tunnels they were; still, I guess you didn't care as much about that as saving your skin. Also interesting was the "Room With A View With A Queue" - despite the fact that most of the staff working in the tunnels were female, there was only one women's restroom -- but it also had one of the very few windows to fresh air & sunlight. So it would be extremely popular, and knowing males, probably for more than one reason...
Immediately after, Our Fearless Leader and the rest were ready to go to Canterbury. I, on the other hand, hadn't had as much time to explore, but didn't want to hold everyone else up, so I decided to stay while everyone else went. We agreed that we'd meet at the entrance to Canterbury Cathedral at 4:30. This time, we decided on a fail-safe: if we didn't find one another by 4:45, split and find our own way back. This decided, the motley crew departed, leaving me on the surprisingly quiet sunny hillside outside the tunnels.
It was gorgeous - sunny, a brisk breeze, low 60's, clouds chasing each other across the sky. I hiked up to the Admiral's Lookout, from which location one can see France (although London, sadly, was well out of range, disappointing my childish hopes of being able to say "I see London, I see France." Oh well -- I've seen London, I've seen France, dirty thoughts have had their chance.) :-) That disappointment set aside, the Channel was almost blue, the verdure atop the Cliffs emerald, and the famous Cliffs themselves were gleaming white. Got a lovely photograph to be posted at next opportunity. I wandered outside the medieval part for a while, but as it was 3:10 and I didn't know the way back to the train station, didn't know the way to the Canterbury Cathedral from THAT train station, didn't know when I could catch the next half-hour train ride there... I decided it would be wiser to start down the hill. Fortunately, a nice lady at the ticket booth was able to give me directions to the station, where I arrived at promptly 3:35 PM, to discover the next train left at 16:06. I'd just missed the 15:23, and wondered how many other tourists were taken aback by the sudden appearance of military time. So I sat around and read my book for school and berated myself for not checking the times, as I could have had more fun exploring Henry II's castle with Henry VIII's refurbishings. Oh well. At 3:59 (by my old-fashioned 12-hour watch), the train pulled in, and departed promptly at 4:06, despite my mental urgings for it to hurry up, hurry up, let's go, let's go. They need to check the telepathy receptors on that thing. Lucky for me, it was a direct train, which meant no irritating time-consuming stops, and at 4:29 we arrived safely in
CANTERBURY -
Understandably I was in a bit of a hurry, not wanting to travel alone and having 16 minutes in which to discover and walk to the cathedral. Fortunately, Canterbury is wonderfully tourist friendly, in a custom which apparently dates back to the Normans. They provided a convenient wall around 1100 called the Dane John which, once connected by bridge to the train station, provides a lovely scenic ancient pathway directly from the point of arrival to the heart of the town, well within view of the cathedral. I must admit, I'm impressed by a tourism bureau which can provide such luxuries. I recommend that London install a genuine medieval wall from Victoria Station to Westminster Abbey. Better yet, Dover ought to install a genuine medieval lift/elevator to the castle...
Okay, having traversed the entire length of the Dane John, I found myself footsteps away from an old, old city colorfully decked out for markets and tourists. It was 4:35, so I didn't have time to enjoy them, but I was reassured by the sight of the great cathedral over that building -- wait, where did it go?
I still don't know how three-story buildings can mask a giant tower like that - geometry and line-of-sight can be SO counterintuitive - but fortunately I had only a short distance to go, not enough to mix up even my primitive sense of direction. Duck down a dark alleyway that seemed to be going in the right direction (please don't let me get lost) and there I was at the front door, with five minutes to spare...! And no friends in sight.
So, I knew the cathedral was closed for an investiture, but I decided to look and see whether they'd wrangled their way inside. Was shooed by a doorkeeper to get WELL aside, the investiture people were in a procession halfway down the looooooong aisle to come out RIGHT WHERE WE WERE. Cool! But where were my friends? Then I spotted them straggling through the gate I'd just entered - they couldn't see me - so I darted across the way to join them just moments before the procession came out. They were so busy taking pics they didn't see me til I tapped one on the shoulder. They were happy to see me, I think (am going to assume Our Fearless Leader is merely not a people person; I don't think I'm so offensive as to merit that kind of dismissal by a friendly person). We then found that the public was being allowed inside.
Wow. That's all I have to say. St. Paul's suffers seriously from far too much renovation going on; Canterbury suffers none. I saw the place where Thomas a Beckett was martyred, the courtyard in the cloisters where he's buried; I saw the place where his shrine used to be (before Henry VIII had it destroyed; Henry II had him killed; both the kings majorly associated with Dover Castle had Issues with the poor guy. Tom just can't get a break from Harrys.) I saw the grave of Edward the Black Prince of Wales, who figures into legend sufficiently to interest me. Henry IV (gotta catch up on my Shakespeare). And that's just the historical stuff. The really amazing thing was the artistry of this gorgeous old cathedral. St. Paul's beauty is in architectural lines and the mosaics; Canterbury has even more gorgeous grand Gothic architecture and beautiful, beautiful, intricate stained glass - so plentiful that I think every one of its innumerable windows is supposed to have stained glass, but the centuries and wars have destroyed some. Even in twilight, there was enough light coming in to illuminate the lovely scenes. No pics yesterday, but I'm definitely going back - maybe during the festival in October. In other news, was reassured of place in group when Fearless Leader came to chat one-on-one about the beauty of the church.
THE TRAIN RIDE HOME
Gee, you'd think this would be uneventful - but when we arrived at Faversham, to our confusion the conductor was announcing that we had to switch trains to get to London Victoria - and had moments in which to do so. We'd all laid out all our things for the trip, so repacking was frantic. I was slowest and got left behind as everyone else rushed to the train - but since I'm always slowest and am usually behind, if only by a few steps, no one noticed til after they'd settled in. Lucky for me, I managed to shovel everything back in my bag and switch trains.
I immediately regretted it. First, I'd gotten in the wrong car (not train), so my friends were not in evidence in any of the second-class cars in the area, and I didn't want to venture through first-class. Second, this train was vastly inferior to the previous one in comfort/cleanliness/good repair etc, and I was beginning to suspect that the only difference between the trains was how long they'd take to get to London, not whether they'd get there -- and by this time, I was tired enough to welcome a long train ride. Third, my car smelled distinctly of cigarette smoke, some kids were chattering, there was a greasy shifty-looking guy directly opposite, and someone's cellphone was beeping.
Lucky for me, my friends noticed, and Our Fearless Leader came back to hunt for me and brought me to the rest of the group, in a slightly more comfortable area with no greasy bums and no cigarette smoke and no noisy kids, although there was another cell phone. And There Was Much Rejoicing. And then we settled in, dozed off in the warm car until we got back to London, and proceeded home without incident.
And That Was My Weekend Out. This has been another Kirala Epic brought to you by
British Railways
Dover Castle
Canterbury Cathedral
Our Fearless Leader
The League Against Greasy Bums
and
No Contributions from Viewers Like You; Contributions Welcome
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