White Cliffs of Dover - Canterbury Cathedral, WTRD 22

June 28, 2018 - White Cliffs of Dover

We checked off two of the many places we wanted to see while in England, the White Cliffs of Dover and Canterbury Cathedral.  England is having a heat wave right now and the sky is clear of clouds, but our destinations are close to the sea and and wispy fog blows in with the breeze.

Russ and I drove out to the Dover White Cliffs Trust for a look at the white cliffs.  It would have been better had we been on a boat as we would have had a broad view.  Our view was of the white cliffs was limited to a single slope of white dropping to the sea.  We spent a portion of the morning walking in the Trust area enjoying the white cliffs (ancient sea beds of crushed shells),

birds,

bunnies,

views of ferries,

the Dover Port,














and the Dover Castle high above the sea and the cliffs.

Next, it was time to drive another 40 minutes to Canterbury.  We parked the car about 15 minutes walk from the Cathedral outside of the city and walked in.  Canterbury Cathedral was founded by Saint Augustine in 597 AD., the Cathedral was completely rebuilt between 1070 and 1077. We learn that it takes over 18,000 pounds a day to keep the church open for he public.

It is currently being restored and there is scaffolding and netting around the areas of work.  Nevertheless, the architecture and the Cathedral are magnificent.
We were pleasantly surprised that when we arrived, the Napa Valley High School Alumni Choir from California was performing at the Cathedral.  We caught the tail end of their performance.

Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered in his Cathedral in 1170.  Becket was a martyr and honored by pilgrims donating enough money to the church to pay for all of the stained glass windows in the rebuilt cathedral.

After our tour of the Cathedral, we walked through the quaint town and enjoyed a late lunch at a local pub of fish and chips and beer before heading back to our Dandelion cottage.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel R's in Kent, England

From Dusseldorf to England Via Brugge, Belgium - WTRD's 20-22

June 25-June 27

June 25 - After bidding our hosts Suzanna and Heiko goodbye around 7:45 am on Monday morning,

we walked two block to the train station and got on the first of four trains that would take us out of Dusseldorf, out of Germany, into Brussel, and then to Brugge.  I had been to Brugge myself in 1997 and wanted to share this wonderful old town with Russ.  It only took 21 years for a return visit!

We arrived mid afternoon and walked from the train station to our AirBnB accommodation approximately 1 mile towing our rolling bags, clickty-clack across cobbled walk ways and srreets.  The houses in the city our tall and narrow.  I think we may need new wheels on our bags after this trip.

Our accommodations were quite nice and in a great location for eating, shopping, and site seeing.

Quickly unpacking and settling in, we went for a late afternoon walk and dinner out.

It was still quite light out at 10:00 pm in the evening, but definitely past our bedtimes.

June 26.  The following morning we treated ourselves to Belgium waffles for breakfast as we made our way to the canal boats for a ride around town.

Yum!  I had a chocolate banana waffle and Russ had strawberries and cream.  We will have to walk our tails off to burn these calories!  But that would have to be after our canal ride and brewery tour.

Looking up from the canal boat.

Directly after our canal ride, we took a brewery tour of the De Halve Maan brewery.

View from the top of Brewery

Okay, so if we had Belgium Waffles for Breakfast, Beer For Lunch, what would have for dinner.

But of course, it would have to be more chocolate!  Heaven!  We are certainly in the right place for dark, dark chocolate.

Everything seen here is edible  chocolate.

Brugge also has a beautiful cathederal, St. Salvador.

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We walked, and walked, and walked

We called it a day around 10:30 pm and fell into bed.

June 27, 2018

We went out for breakfast this morning before our train.   I ordered scrambled eggs and bacon and Russ has a huge selection of breads with ham and cheese.  

My Coffee with a little chocolate Mousse!

I returned back at the AirBnB to catch up on blogging, editing, etc. while Russ successfully searched and found a geocache.  By noon, we were checked out and on our way out of Brugge across the Chunnel to England.  We arrived at the Brussel's Eurostar train station around 3:00 and could not start the check in process until 3:30, so we ate a late lunch then checked in.  

We had to go through passport control and security checks not unlike the airport, except we didn't have to separate out our lithium batteries or our liquids.  Once we were on the train and on our way, it took us only a little over an hour to reach our destination of Ashford International Train Station.  We sped through Belgium and a little bit of France, passed through a heavily protected area around the chunnel entrance,

I am reflected in the window trying to take a photo of the darkness.

and entered the train tunnel at 4:11 and surfaced at 4:33.  

The channel is about 22 miles across, so we figured the train was traveling at least 100 miles per hour.

We picked up our little red Fiat.  It was a new car but the gps was an old-school plug in, so what we what we were seeing in real time didn't match up with the directions.  We have driven in right hand cars before in New Zealand and Australia, so that part is pretty familiar, but it does take getting used to again.  What was difficult for us was all of the road construction around Ashford International.  The GPS had us going around in circles because we couldn't turn where we were directed, then we would make a U turn as directed and, come back and still couldn't make the turn. 

Finally we decided to make our own path.  We finally got to our destination but we were both exhausted by the time we got there.    Country roads in Kent are single lane at best with some pull outs, huge unkempt hedge rows on either side with no shoulder so it is like driving in a tunnel with blind curves.  Russ would pull as far over as he could  to get out of the way of on coming vehicles and we could hear the bushes scraping along side the car.

Our AirBnB is in a converted old pub.  We have the Dandelion room with our own little outside seating area.

Once we were unpacked and settled, we went to the local pub and had some dinner, baked salmon for Russ, chicken pie for me.

Dinner was good even though the crust was a bit charred.

Tomorrow, we plan to see the white cliffs of Dover and Canterbury Cathedral.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel Rs in Kent, South Eastern England.