The day after classes ended for the term Kendal (my, um, “special” friend. We met our first Sunday here. She’s from the States and is also studying at the LSE.) and I rented a car and went on a day trip to the beach. Now, remember this may not be Canada but it’s still winter over here so it wasn’t exactly bathing-suit-weather. In typical English fashion we were rained or drizzled on most of the day but had a fun time anyhow. After leaving London (which was a little bit of an adventure in and of itself since neither of us had ever driven on the left side of the road before), we drove to Cantebury (of Chaucer’s Cantebury Tales fame) where we wandered around but were unable to get into the famous cathedral where Thomas Becket was killed. In fact, this is as close as we were able to get without having to pay a rather steep entrance fee.
Upon leaving Cantebury we made our way to Dover using some backroads which gave us a chance to see the ‘real’ British countryside which is stunning in my opinion. It is verdant even in the winter months and I can only imagine what it must look like in the summer! Kent also holds a special place in my heart because many of the most important chapters of the Battle of Britain took place in the skies over the region. It’s always interesting being in a place where history has been made.
The town of Dover itself was underwhelming to say the least and we couldn’t find a decent pub to eat in so we grabbed something to go from McD’s. I had my first Big Mac and was, once again, underwhelmed. Kept body and spirit together though.
The up-side of Dover was walking along the famed ‘white cliffs’ just North of both the town and the impressive Norman castle. It was a blustery day which made the Channel rough and which cut our walk along the cliff short as both of us were having some trouble walking and neither of us wanted to explain to the other’s parents how their child met an untimely end in such a beautiful but craggy place.
After feasting our eyes and (nominally) feeding our bellies, we proceeded down the coast toward Brighton, getting out to walk on the pebble beach at Folkestone and passing through Hastings (Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror, etc.) and pushing for Beachy Head to see the Seven Sisters but it was dark long before we got there and neither Kendal nor I were about to go romping around in the dark and stormy night looking for some 500 foot tall cliffs…especially coming from the direction we were (i.e. inland)!
(This is what we would have seen if we'd stuck around til daylight...and a clear sky.)
Our return to London was relatively uneventful. We took a wrong turn in East Grinstead and ended up in the (very quaint) centre of town where we had a nice meal in a genuine pub. (At least we think it was genuine…I mean, who would build a tourist pub in a small town in the middle of nowhere?). After a short walk around, on which we found the following sign, we got back on the road which, as we were surprised to find out, led right past the front of the London Temple (which isn’t actually in London).
A few stressful minutes later we had crossed southern London, only getting lost a couple of times, and returned the car to London City Centre Airport at 11:30, tuckered out but pleased to have escaped the cold concrete embrace of the city.
1 comment:
Glad to read that you're getting some travel in while you're over there! I can't wait to re-visit Europe some time in the not too distant future. By the way, when do we get a picture of the person behind the camera on the BigMac shot? ;)
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