Once inside, we saw many interesting things and managed to make a new friend. This is Alex, he is one of the cats that live in and around Canterbury. He seemed quite nice (and bears a strong resemblance to a feline friend that we have left at home).
One of the most beautiful parts of the Cathedral (which was totally full of beautiful parts) was the Fan Ceiling which is the ceiling just under the bell portion of the bell tower. This is looking straight up from standing in the transcept. Lots of beauty in this cathedral.
After quite a bit of time in the Cathedral, we headed even further east. In fact, we went as far east as you can go without getting wet and needing to brush up on your French. It was time for our visit to Dover. This was definitely one of Denise's highest priority days in UK as both Canterbury and the White Cliffs were on her 'must-do' list. Dover did not disappoint. Our first stop was the cliffs and after reaching the car park, we hiked our way down a couple paths to find this view.
We then saw something that we have seen quite a few times during this trip. Sheep. Unlike most of the ones we have seen from a moving car, these were hanging out in the fields directly above the cliffs. Therefore, we headed down another path to stop for a visit. Margaret decided that she wanted to get a little more up close and personal with them and ended up a little bit trapped on the path.
After hiking back to the car, it was on to our second destination in Dover, the Castle.
While the awesome magnificence of the cliffs had been what nature could create, the castle showed some pretty exceptional examples of what man can create. The fortress itself is quite impressive and the restoration and upkeep of it is really amazing. We walked around the main castle area for quite some time, exploring different buildings, rooms, towers, and tunnels. It was quite impressive to see buildings still standing in good condition from multiple ages in British history. We had also decided to take a guided tour through the tunnels that are built right into the White Cliffs. In the picture above, these tunnels are to the left of the castle itself. The tour is through the area of tunnels that was used primarily during World War II. They had been really created during the Napoleonic Wars and used sporadically since then, but the tour was a description of Operation:Dynamo in which 300,000+ soldiers were rescued from eastern France as the Nazis pursued them. Very impressive and we highly recommend it. During the tour itself, you cannot take photographs, so I'm afraid no pics from there.
Once we had explored all we were going to explore (you really can't beat a site with a Roman era tower and 1980s Cold War bunkers within a few feet of each other), we headed a little further south for a visit to a nature preserve that has been built on the dirt that was excavated to make the Channel Tunnel that connects the UK to France. Although I haven't mentioned it yet, it was extremely windy on this day and basically that meant that after the cliffs and castle, standing outside was getting a bit too much for us (especially our younger team member). Thus, our visit tot he park was pretty short, but it was quite beautiful.
Upon leaving there, we were really in need of a good dinner somewhere, so Denise located a restaurant online that seemed to fit the bill - a family-friendly pub not too far off the M road that we were taking back to Horley for our second night in that B&B. The Pheasant was one of our best dinner experiences during the whole trip and we were quite glad to find it (even after the the Iphone Maps app sent us into a small neighborhood first and then the wrong direction from there - thankfully a very nice barmaid at another pub helped us find what we were looking for). Finally, we were back to Horley and very ready for sleep after a long day!
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