Dull Dover

Apart from Dover’s awesome castle, we found Dover a bit disappointing. It’s a small, but very busy town due to its huge port. It doesn’t have as many old style buildings gracing its streets because it was mostly flattened by German air raids during World War II. A lot of the post war replacement buildings just look plain ugly. Even so, we took some photos while we were there which can be seen here.

The first thing we did after arriving in Dover was to check out the centre. It was smaller than we expected, but had a few shops and restaurants around. The centre of Dover is also home to the most ugly and out of place building I’ve ever seen in a town or city. Someone dumped a huge rust-brown brick shaped building right in the centre that manages takes away what charm the centre of Dover had.
After running out interesting things to look at in the town we went to a great Indian restaurant that our B&B host recommended. We were entertained there by the conversation of the couple next to us, which can only be described as the worst date ever.

We got up early the next morning, and got to Dover Castle when it opened. Even though it was raining on and off throughout the day we were not disappointed. The castle site has history stretching right back to Roman times, and was utilised as recently as World War II as a military headquarters. We managed to spend 5 hours touring the castle and surrounding sites, the most impressive of which was “The Secret Wartime Tunnels” where they had a great tour of the tunnels which were created initially during the Napoleonic wars and extended for use as bunkers for the admiralty during WWII. The rest of the castle was also very interesting with lots of hidden surprises through some of the doors.

Although we had seen the White Cliffs of Dover from a distance the previous day, we decided to try and get a closer look. We walked up the hill from the castle and followed the ‘White Cliffs’ signs along the road; this went well until we discovered the footpath ended and a tight windy road with no verge began. Given the number of cars travelling down the road and the speed they were travelling at, we felt it was best to avoid this death trap and give the cliffs a miss.

The next day, we returned to London, where Tanya travelled onto Heptonstall to visit High School friends(no update here, unless requested by popular demand) and I stayed with family before we met back up and headed back down to Brighton to stay with my fantastic aunt while we prepared for our trip through Europe.

Christian Canterbury

We found Canterbury to be a small quaint city, centred mainly around religious buildings as it is home to the head of the Anglican Church, the Archbishop of Canterbury. We took a some photos of Canterbury which you can browse by clicking here.

Our B&B was right in the centre of town for a change which we found really handy with the weather going from bad to worse throughout our second day. However, the weather was fantastic on our first day, so we took the opportunity to visit the cathedral.
Canterbury Cathedral is yet another very impressive cathedral. They had trainee masons displaying their craft inside the cathedral when we visited which made it pretty loud inside. The history of the cathedral goes way back to 602 AD, and is also the site where Thomas Becket (archbishop at the time) was martyred in 1170. His martyrdom made Canterbury a really popular place for pilgrims to visit, and these pilgrims inspired Geoffrey Chaucer to write the famous Canterbury Tales in the 14th century.
We decided to splash out for dinner that night, so walked 20 meters from our room to the main street in search of restaurants. We found Italian restaurants and… Italian restaurants and not much else. We ended up in an Italian restaurant and had a nice meal.

We woke up the next morning and it was raining. We were going to go on a walking tour a bit later so we were hoping it would stop. In the meantime, we visited the local museum and the remains of Canterbury Castle, both of which were OK, but not very impressive.
By then it was time to go see if we could go on a walking tour. It was still raining when we got to the information centre in time for the tour. The rain had driven the rest of the tourists away, so we were the only ones on it. Our guide was a nice little old lady who took us around interesting sites in Canterbury while the rain got heavier. By the end, even though we had an umbrella and jackets, our trousers and shoes were absolutely soaked through. We squelched our way back to our B&B, borrowed a mini hairdryer from the owner, and tried to dry off. My shoes haven’t smelled the same since.

Later in the day we visited the Eastbridge Hospital, originally used as a hostel for Thomas Becket pilgrims (hospitality centre for the pilgrims), it now houses a few elderly residents and is open for tourists. We also visited Greyfriars Friary where there is only 1 building remaining of the originally large friary. Greyfriars still has an elderly resident Franciscan friar, who we met. He was traditionally dressed in a plain brown robe and seemed like a really nice guy. He said he liked New Zealand when he visited years ago.

The next day we took a short train trip to Dover.

Classical Cambridge

Cambridge struck us as being remarkably similar to Oxford; its focus is the university, there are old Gothic colleges scattered around the city, and it’s got lots of farmland around it. It was an interesting city to explore, even if we were staying a bit of a way out of the centre. We took photos of our explorations which can be seen here.

We arrived in Cambridge train station after a long trip down from Newcastle and found the train station to be quite a bit out of the city. This didn’t bother us much though, as our B&B was also out of the city. We found out later that the train station is situated outside of the centre because the University heads during the late 19th century blocked attempts at moving the station to a central location. They didn’t want students to have easy access to the station in case they gallivanted off to London instead of studying.
Speaking of restricting students, students are not allowed to keep a car or motorcycle within Cambridge itself (without a special permit), which means that there a more than enough cyclists on Cambridge streets.
We spent what was left of our first day in Cambridge walking around a few of the streets and taking a look at the Backs, a large green area at the back of the large, older colleges. This is also where most of the punting goes on, as the river Cam runs between the colleges and the Backs. We ended up skipping a punt ride as we found the prices were a little high.

We spent almost the whole of the next day visiting colleges. We got a walking tour that had access to a lot of the places that you can’t get into by yourself. We saw about 5 colleges on the tour, the most impressive one being King’s College. The college was founded back in 1441 by King Henry VI and sits on a huge area of land right in central Cambridge. The Chapel is the highlight of the College with huge stained glass windows and a very impressive fan vaulted ceiling running it’s complete length.
The other impressive college we saw, this one by ourselves, was St John’s College. It is situated on an even large area of land than King’s College. It’s also where the Cambridge version of the Bridge of Sighs is located.

After spending the previous day touring colleges, we were well and truly colleged out, so we just got the train the next morning to Canterbury.

As you might have noticed, I’m a bit behind on the posts as we were in Cambridge back at the very end of August. After this one I’ve got a couple more before we get to Europe…

Newcastle and Hadrian’s Wall Uncovered

We didn’t spend too much time in Newcastle itself, as it didn’t seem to have too much to offer tourists. We spent our full day up north by touring some of Hadrian’s Wall which was very interesting. We took photos of all, which can be seen here.

After arriving in Newcastle late in the day and eventually finding our hotel, we decided to explore the city a bit. We headed down to the river and came across Newcastle’s Bridges. They have quite a few in a small area, the most interesting of which is the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, a tilting pedestrian and cycles only bridge that looks a little like a pair of eyelids.
We also stumbled across “New Castle”, the castle that Newcastle is named after, but unfortunately we couldn’t go in as it was undergoing extensive restoration.

It was early the next morning when we headed down to the train station to catch the first bus along Hadrian’s Wall. The bus was pretty empty, but the Geordie bus guide kept the few us on the bus entertained as we headed west.
We had a few informative lectures and amusing stories along the way, such as:
“We’re going to stop here for about 5 minutes. Feel free to get off and have a look around. But remember it’s only 5 minutes; don’t do what one guy did and go into that cafe over there and order a full English breakfast. We won’t be here when you get back.”

After about an hour and a half, we arrived at Housesteads Fort, just about half way along Hadrian’s Wall. It was situated up the top of the hill, and the site was quite large. There were remains of towers, gates, a granary, a large communal latrine, barracks, and a high command centre. However, as with most of Hadrian’s Wall the ruins didn’t extend much higher than a metre in most places. It was still an interesting place to visit, and the surrounding scenery was quite beautiful.

After we finished touring Housesteads we headed back down to the bus stop to catch a bus to the next fort, but it was about 45 minutes late. The bus driver didn’t look to be in the best of moods as we hopped on board the almost empty bus. He put his foot to the floor as he tried to make up for lost time, passing cars that were driving at the speed limit, and scaring the shit out of us. Luckily, we were only 1 stop away, and were glad to get away.
Chesters Fort is situated next to a river and had similar roman buildings to Housesteads, except they seemed to be better preserved. The highlight of the Fort had to be the remains of the bathhouse down by the river, which to a large extent was mostly intact.

We ended up getting back to Newcastle late in the day, so we just organised ourselves for the early train trip the next morning down to Cambridge.

York, Yonder

From the beginning, York was pushed as the most haunted city in England, but we found it quite pleasant. It still has a lot of old buildings, including the fortified gates (or bars) that used to be the only entrances into the city. It also has a large amount of the original city walls still standing.
People were friendly, the weather was pretty good, and there’s a tower with my name on it there, so we enjoyed our stay. We took photos as always, which can be seen here.

After arriving at our B&B on our first day, we headed toward the centre and jumped on one of the tourist bus tours to get an overview of the city. After learning about the how first the Romans, then the Vikings inhabited the city, and how gates are called ‘bars’ and how streets are called ‘gates’, we jumped off and made our way to the towering cathedral.
York Minister cathedral was huge inside, and had impressive stained glass and carvings inside and out. We climbed the tower to get a good view of the city, then went into the undercroft to get a good view of the history that the cathedral was built on, as there used to be a Roman fort on the same site. The chapter house wasn’t to be missed either, with an impressive ceiling and windows on all sides.
By the evening, we were hungry after our touring, so found a chinese restaurant that was situated inside a medieval house, complete with really low ceilings and an overhanging top storey. It was a bit bizarre, but we enjoyed the meal and it was well priced too.

The next morning we made a beeline for Clifford’s Tower, as I had seen it on the bus the day before and wanted to know why my name was on it. It turns out that in 1322, Sir Roger Clifford was executed at the tower, and also in 1642, Henry Clifford, the last Earl of Cumberland took possession of the tower during the English Civil War. So it was named for one of those reasons. There’s not much left of the tower, which used to be part of the larger York Castle which no longer exists, but it still has pretty good views from up the top.

Our next stop was the National Railway Museum where my inner “Thomas the Tank Engine loving” child had a great time. They had a huge number of Engines and displays on the history of the railways, so that by the time we left we were a bit sick of them.
We stumbled upon a free guided walking tour of some of the city that was just about to start, so joined in. The tour guide gave us a good tour of some of the ruins of old York and filled us in on some of the history.
We hadn’t had quite enough of walking tours, and hadn’t been scared by any ghosts in York yet, so on our last night we went on the Ghost Quest walking tour. It was pretty good, and informative, but no ghosts popped out to say hello, much to my disappointment and Tanya’s relief.

The next day, after filling in some time at the York Museum, we headed north on the train toward Newcastle.

Quick Update

Here’s a quick update on what we’ve been up to… sorry for the lack of new posts recently, but Tanya and I have been having a rip-roaring good time in Europe. Where’d we go you might ask?

Well here’s a rundown:

First, to North France by ferry:

• Dieppe
• Rouen
• Paris
• Versailles

Next, Switzerland to see our old friend, Marco:

• Zurich
• Interlaken

Then down to Italy:

• Venice
• Rome
• Pompeii

Then back up into the South of France:

• Nice
• Carcassonne
• Bordeaux
• St. Emilion

Then back up to Dieppe to get the ferry back over.

We really liked France, especially the south, and also enjoyed visiting Switzerland. Italy for reasons I’ll go into later, we didn’t like as much, although Venice and Pompeii were exceptionally unique.

Right now we’re back in London, staying in a studio flat temporarily while we look for permanent accommodation. We’ll also get back on the job search bandwagon real soon.

I’ll update the blog with some more posts soon, when I get round to it, with links to photos, etc. Promise!