Dover, the French invasion - 2nd July

Lots of showers later, we headed off to the white cliffs.
We drove past the biggest castle in England to get there. It really is a big castle.
We had our usual egg and bacon buttie from our favourite coffee shop 'Greggs'.

The White cliffs of Dover are white, we thought they'd be grey or maybe a bland yellow, but they really are white. We embarked on walk that said 50 minutes, apparently that was one way and didn't include all the side tracks. So we set off at 10.00am and got back to the car at 1.00pm.
Here we are at the cliffs, Steven's trying out a new hairstyle he saw in a pub somewhere.
There is a walk down to the beach that not many people do, no idea why.

 
Near the bottom is a walking tunnel that runs for about 50 metres and ends up at a spot where they built one of the searchlights during WW2.
We stole a chalk pebble off of the beach.
On the way back up, in the blazing sun, it was very hot. We wondered how many people had passed through the tunnel over the centuries. We later discovered that the tunnel is two months old and was put in by the local council because the last part of the track had been washed away.





Back at the car park we decided we might just pop into the castle on the way past for an hour.

Dover castle was founded in 1070 or there abouts. It is a significant castle because it is the point in England that is closest to Europe. It has served as defense since then and had an important role in WW2.
Today there are 2,500 french school children at the castle, the French were locked up here in the 1700's during the seven year war. Doesn't seem to have put them off at all. Today all the little frog children are being taught arrogance.


The graffiti in the castle was interesting, one piece was dated 1710, by a French person who was imprisoned there.
All English graffiti started in the mid 1800's, that is when compulsory education came to England, that is when we learnt to write. It is also the time when gravestones started appearing, prior to this time no-one could read so they didn't bother. With the exception of a few famous people. Anyway, graffiti is nothing new. This graffiti from 1710 mentions the fact that he is a prisoner.
The 300 year old graffiti is not covered up or protected.

There are many tunnels under Dover castle, some date back to the medieval times, others are more recent.
We had a look at the medieval tunnels and then went down to the war tunnels. This was our second trip to the war tunnels as Steven refused to queue for 30 minutes with 50 other people (some of them French) the first time, fair point seeing as the second time it was a five minute wait and there were only 10 other people.
In these tunnels that were used in WW2 there are large communications rooms, war rooms, bunk houses. It's quite amazing. Under these tunnels are the nuclear shelters put in in the 1960's. Sadly, because they are still being used, we weren't allowed to take photos.







Also within the site is the Roman lighthouse, this was constructed in the year AD 43, now this is a seriously old building, nearly 2000 years and still standing.
The lighthouse is the tower on the left.

The building on the right is an Anglo Saxon Church dating from around AD 600. So it was built 550 years after the lighthouse but it's still nearly 1500 years old.

We found our way back to what was a very crowded car park at 1.30 when we arrived.






Too late to go to the Abbey now, so we went to the pub instead.