My Birthday today! My turn to open presents! Yey! I opened them in bed just as Mathew did with his presents. He bought me Balloo the bear, a green amber pendant, an apron with “I *heart* bears” on it, and a DVD among other things. His parents bought me a beading book which I don’t already have!! His sister bought me chocolates and a bear stamp from Germany and a crazy book no baking horror style (or Halloween style” cupcakes, which I may try next week as it’s Halloween and Mathew is going to visit Amy over that weekend. Mum and Dad bought me lots of things too, £40 to spend at Amazon.co.uk, socks, and two pashminas among other things.
So, after having waffles for breakfast, it was time to leave for Dover for the second time - to the Castle which we were thinking would probably take up the entire day, and we hoped we managed to save the best till last. And indeed we did! First off, remember I said that I was going to pay close attention to which roads we were travelling along so to make the journey simpler? Well Mathew said “It’s okay, I know the way,” so I put the map down. Then about 3 minutes later .. “I think I took the wrong turn…!” Of course I didn’t know where we were!! But it didn’t take to long to get on the right road and onward to Dover Castle.
The place is so big that parking is INSIDE the Castle grounds! The first thing we did was actually what should have came last - or historically, anyway. We went for a guided tour around the underground tunnels, including the hospital. We sat down to watch a short film before having the actual tour. The tour itself was very good, and through speakers hidden in alcoves, we stood in each room and listened to a scenario. The tunnels were lit, but they flickered every now and then as they would have done during war time, and we heard bombing and sirens too, as if we had actually stepped back in time. The tunnels had been made to look like people were still working there, with desks, maps, and all sorts of equipment all over the place. The hospital was like this too, nothing gory though, but there were cabinets full of lots of medical equipment, and there were rooms or wards where the patients would have recovered.
After the tour we went around the Castle grounds, and headed for lunch before going into the Keep. There was a café just outside the Keep which we were going to go into, but it was closed - at 12:30 in the afternoon…?!?? That was a bit strange…! We headed down to the restaurant - which was open - and got ourselves some nice food. I went with macaroni cheese (I wasn’t planning on having pasta tonight!) and Mathew had a quiche. We had a naughty scone after that, but we did share it!! Then we went back to the Keep, which was the other best part of the Castle. I don’t think I have ever visited a Castle where they have done what they have in Dover - basically, they have decorated the main large rooms how they would have been decorated when the place was in use. It looks very toy box like, but bright garish colours really would have been used - blue, green, red, gold - on the walls, the beds, the chairs, the footstools. EVERYTHING was brightly coloured and sort of unbelievable really, but it just looked SO good! Now I’m going to watch all those films where they have used Castles and decorated them with dull colours or left the walls blank and wonder what colours really would have been used back in the day?
There were also some holographic sequences which we didn’t HAVE to watch, and they weren’t tacky - basically you heard voices in a room and you found the holograph later - it was quite subtle and because they have only just really completed decorating the Keep, it didn’t look dated. That’s not to say that it will in time, perhaps….but I have been to quite a few where the people look dated and nothing has obviously been done since the early 1980s! This was up to date and pretty brand new, and it looked great.
After the Keep we explored some more of the grounds and the medieval tunnels which were quite fun. We did a lot of walking today, lots of ups and downs! My pedometer at the end of the day read 4,935 steps which apparently equated to about 241 calories. Hmmm…..not sure about that! It doesn’t take into account steepness or strenuousness so…all I know is that I have had a fairly good workout with the legs today!!
We popped into the shop which was very samey as most English Heritage shops seem to be, and a large proportion of the shop is targeted to children. Nothing wrong with that of course, but it leaves very little choice for the adults. If you want a postcard of something in particular you can always be sure it won’t exist! Plus there doesn’t seem to be anything unique with any of the English Heritage shops either - they’re all pretty much clones. National Trust shops are slightly different, they’re not quite as clone like as English Heritage, but you can bet on some things being in all their shops. There weren’t many people in this shop at Dover Castle, and there was a guy who was trying to flog the food at us, telling us the chutney is “very tasty” and there were some fudge cookie things which they had been given about 400 boxes off to sell off cheap because the order was a mistake……!! But then he started to get just a liiiiiitle bit irritating because I looked at something and he told me about it in more detail, then explained something else, Mathew was looking at the postcards and he told him it was “buy three for £1”….were they desperate for a sale?? Anyway, he seemed to vanish at some point, much to the relief of everyone else in the shop! We didn’t buy anything unfortunately - this is why I am so disappointed with places like this. Here is this fantastic building, and the shop has the same things inside it as every other, with nothing new or unique. This means that in most places like this, I come away with nothing but photographs and maybe the odd guidebook. It’s a shame, but on the other hand at least I haven’t collected meaningless clutter!!
After the shop we headed to the church which is “St. Mary de Castro”, which was very nicely decorated inside. Mathew told me that the mosaic like decoration on the walls would have been something used to decorate the interiors of many Castles around the country. Next to the church was a tall tower - which used to be a lighthouse. It is the tallest Roman structure still surviving today, in the country, which is quite impressive. There used to be another one on the other side of Dover, but I think the footings only remain of that one now.
We headed back to the car, and as I have no mobile reception in The Smithy, I decided to call my parents and thank them for all the presents they gave me. Then we headed on home to The Smithy where we had a nice cup of tea, but we missed the cake out this time, as we had booked a table at “Froggies” which as a French restaurant just down the road which meant we just had to walk there. So no cake in the afternoon was eaten because we wanted our stomachs to be as empty as possible so we would enjoy the meal later on tonight.
We went to Froggie’s for my Birthday meal – I had steak while Mathew had mussels. We both had Crème Brulee for dessert which was delicious! And yes, the place was covered in toy frogs!
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