A Pilgrimage of our Own

This past weekend saw us up bright and early as we had to be in London by 8:15 in order to catch the coach to the coast.  Our first stop was in the city of Canterbury.  Canterbury is home to the Church of England and the setting for Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.  When we arrived, we went on a short walking tour of the city, ending near the center of town at the Huguenot weavers' house.  Along the way, we made a quick detour to see a building erected by the Greyfriars.  This was the only Greyfriar's building in Canterbury to survive the Reformation.  The building only survived because it is part of a bridge, at the time the only bridge, that spans the River Stour.  King Henry's soldiers deemed the building too important to raze.

Afterward, we were given about an hour to explore the city before meeting back up to go on a boat tour.  The tour was a 40 minute tour on the River Stour.  First, let me explain that the River Stour, or as some call it, the Great Stour River, is only a couple of feet deep.  Anyway, we were in a flat-bottomed, row boat.  One of the sites we saw on the tour was a dunking chair, used in medieval times to "teach" nagging wives a lesson.  I inquired about current pricing, but sadly, we had to leave before we settled on a price. 

Our next destination was in Dover, just 18 miles from France.  Our first stop in Dover was at the beach.  On a clear day you would be able to see the French coast, unfortunately, there was heavy fog the day we were there.  This is the second beach we've seen in England, both made of up stones rather than sand.  It's an odd feeling walking across a beach full of rocks, but if you like to keep your shoes on, I suppose it's for the best. 

We weren't at the beach too long as we still had to make it up the White Cliffs to Dover Castle.  The castle was in the middle of the fog and, being Halloween, gave a great atmosphere for our tour.  Following the Halloween theme, we went on a ghost tour of the castle.  It turned out to be a really corny attempt at scaring people, a goal that it utterly failed to accomplish, and I have no idea what was actually true. 

While we were on the ghost tour, the fog started to lift a bit and we were able to see the city of Dover from the top of the cliffs.  It truly was a great site, but I wish we would have been able to see the castle from the beach.  We still couldn't see France, but from what I was told, from the top of the cliffs, you can see all the way to Paris on a clear day.

After the ghost tour, we headed into the cliffs themselves.  Tunnels were dug into the cliffs during the Napoleonic Wars in order to garrison troops.  These tunnels were later used during World War II as a command center for Operation Dynamo, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force and the part of the French Army off the beaches at Dunkirk and later, to prepare the defenses of the coastline against possible German invasion.  The tunnels were also used to plan and coordinate Operation Neptune, the assault phase of Operation Overlord.  The tunnels were pretty impressive and weren't nearly as cramped as I expected them to be.  In fact, they were quite spacious.  It's also pretty amazing that the Germans had no idea the tunnels existed.  Especially considering how close to France they are.

We then had a two and a half hour trip back to London, followed by a 15 minute tube ride, and finally, a 30 minute train ride back to London.  It was quite a bit to do in one day and all of us were sufficiently wiped out by the time we got home.

Trivia time, it's the fifth of November, anyone know what that means?

-Justin

UPDATE: Pictures here!