Canterbury & Dover

June 23 (Mon): Our first full day in England began with an English Breakfast. We figured we had to try it at least once. This English Breakfast consisted of a fried egg, bacon that looked more like ham, sausage (much larger than American breakfast sausage; it also tasted very different and I didn’t really like it), a small stewed tomato, and some baked beans – oh, and toast. My dad would be in heaven; it comes on a little rack of 6 or 7 pieces and there’s a plate of different kinds of jam. The toast was the best part! Mike had coffee from a French press and I had orange juice (European OJ tastes different from American OJ and not in a good way; still it’s juice!).

After breakfast we walked down to the train station and got ourselves a ticket to Dover, where we had to pick up the car. We had about a half hour to kill so we walked around on the old castle wall that looked over part of the city and a park that according to the plaque had been there since medieval times. At points along the wall there were defense posts that had arrow slits in them – bigger than I thought they would be both in height and in width. I wouldn’t have wanted to be manning one of these during a battle.

The train ride to Dover was through some pretty country – lots of farmland and there were sometimes fields of red poppies – a carpet of red standing out among other gold fields. Once in Dover, we had to find our way to the Eastern Docks where ferries arrive from France, which is where the car rental place was. I had diligently printed directions before we left home on how to do this but they were not easy to follow and in the end, we simply headed toward the water on the assumption that that is where any sort of dock would be. The town itself was much smaller than I thought it would be and awfully pretty, with Dover Castle sitting high up on a hill above the town. We had hoped to go up to the castle, but in the end we were too tired and Mike too anxious about driving and we decided to skip it. We didn’t see the actual White Cliffs of Dover but we did see some white cliffs near the docks.

On our way to the docks, we walked through what was clearly an area intended for tourists – interesting old buildings, quaint shops, and places to eat – but we didn’t linger. Once at the water, we sat for a bit on a bench looking out at the Port of Dover. It was pretty impressive. The Eastern Docks were easy to spot. We saw a lot of ferries coming and going. I had hoped to be able to see France because it was a beautifully clear day and I was told that you could on such days, but we couldn’t see it. Maybe we had to be up at the Castle to do so.

Getting the car was uneventful although we decided to pay additional money (more than the cost of the rental itself) to get insurance. I had called my credit card company before we left home to ask if it insured on rental cars and they said no – so to lower the stress for Mike of driving on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road, we got insurance. This way if anything happens, including a scratch (which they seemed to fret about), we won’t have to pay for anything. Mike’s first time at the wheel and my first time as navigator was to get us back to Canterbury. Mike did really well and it was a very straightforward route to our hotel. We deposited the car there and headed out to explore more of Canterbury and to look at the inside of the Cathedral. The town is full of narrow streets, some cobbled, some not and some old buildings and houses that lean to one side or another. Also, a lot of old churches – much older than anything you’d see in the U.S. I liked the look of them.

As a side note, streets here seem not to allow for parking even though every one does it. This means that if you are driving and you hit a row of parked cars in your lane, you have to veer around it sometimes for quite a ways. This can be intimidating especially as cars don’t seem to give way to each other but rather push on through the narrower space. Eek!

The town was good for walking around in. We found a chocolate shop called Hotel Chocolat and got some very delicious chocolate. There was so much to choose from, I could have happily sat down and stuffed myself silly with all the different kinds, but I exercised restraint and only got a box of 6 chocolates – which later melted in the car and that was sad. Of course I wish I had gotten more now! Mike tried a pasty – and as he’s had another since then, I guess he likes them. I haven’t tried one yet as I decided to have a Cornish pasty when I was actually in Cornwall.

We did go into the cathedral and that was really something. I always try to picture the people who must have built this and how they did so and it never ceases to boggle my mind. There are so many details to take in, it’s almost impossible to do. I realized that if I concentrated on one piece for a bit, more and more details would pop out. The windows were beautiful mosaics of red, blue, gold, and green glass, and I tried to figure out the story they were telling. My camera simply did not do justice to the colors of the stained glass or to the architecture. Even though this cathedral is Anglican, I lit a candle for Jennie’s son (she is Catholic) on the principle that a candle of remembrance works just as well any place. We went down into the crypt but it didn’t look like a crypt the way you might think of one. This is where they keep the church treasury and some pretty impressive items were on display, in particular a gold cross about half the height of me. I was really tired by this point, so I stayed sitting in the cool of the crypt (there were chairs laid out down there as if they hold services) while Mike wandered about in other parts of it. We then made our way out into the garden and from there into one of the cloisters. This is a grassy area, in this case there were some monuments and headstones in it, surrounded by a covered walkway on all sides. There were lots of tombs here under the ground and we walked around and read the inscriptions under our feet and on the walls. Many children who had died in infancy and many men killed in battle.

After this, we walked around the town some more – went into a couple of bookshops but there was nothing special. I’m also very aware that anything I buy to take home has to be put in the suitcase that I’ll be lugging around on the subway and train to get back to London and ultimately to the airport. That was not fun on the way out and I don’t expect it to be on the way home either. We were pretty tired by this point, so we decided to have an early dinner. We went to a pub called The Three Tuns, recommended as a place where the locals go. The bartender was a Polish woman, believe it or not, and she was very kind to us. We asked her about a drink a friend of ours who’d just been visiting England told us to try. This turned out to be called a Cider and Black, which is hard cider plus a black currant liqueur. She gave us a taste for free (I had already ordered a beer when we thought to ask about it). A lot of locals did drop in for a pint and all were nice and fun to talk to. I got fish and chips (fine but not great) and Mike got a Thai curry (which he said was delicious). By the time were done, it was a little after 5 and I decided I really wanted to hear Evensong at the cathedral, which started at 5:30 (that is 17:30 over here). This had been recommended in the guidebook and I love hearing church choirs even though I’m not religious myself. The cathedral actually has two halves and we sat in what I think was the “top half” – on long ornately carved dark wooden benches with red needlepoint cushions and high sides that ran sideways to the alter with an aisle in the middle. The choir was not very big and only consisted of men and boys – no women. Still, when they started to sing, the sound just soared up and stayed there – it was amazing. Gave me goose bumps. We did have to sit through a service, which was about 45 minutes long, but there was lots of singing and that was why I had wanted to go. I knew it might be difficult for Mike as he has no tolerance for religion whatsoever, and so it proved. The service had really just begun when he mouthed that he had to pee and so he left. As there were not many people there, it was pretty obvious when he did so. It was a little embarrassing but only for a minute or two. I stayed through the whole thing and it was clear there were other people there like me who were not religious (did not repeat prayers, etc.) but were there instead for the singing. It was really something. The acoustics of the cathedral were amazing – sound just flew up and echoed. Not something I’ll forget anytime soon.

After the service, Mike and I headed back to our B&B, where we did email and I uploaded pictures from the camera. Helped to keep us awake until an hour for bedtime that wouldn't have us up in the middle of the night!