Just before dinner yesterday on our “at sea” day (no port stops), there was a bit of excitement and everyone was gathering on the port side of the ship and pointing. Turns out there was a nice old mast ship out sailing.

The next stop would be Dover - I hoped we would get a glimpse of the famous white cliffs and when I opened the curtains in the stateroom early this morning, I was greeted with this sight.

Seriously, it’s a ‘holy crap’ moment. I had always heard of the White Cliffs of Dover, but you never imagine that the real thing would live up to the hype. They do. In spades. There’s also the massive Dover Castle perched high atop a hill on the cliffs.

We hopped on our bus tour and they did a quick photo stop at the castle before heading off down the road.

From the castle, we headed up the road about 20 minutes or so to Canterbury. You probably have only heard of Canterbury because of Geoffrey’s Chaucer’s ‘Canterbury Tales’ - one of the first fictional books ever printed in English and one of the first English books ever printed with moveable type. It was published in the year 1400. Now, there’s a pub bearing the name.

We arrived in Canterbury and offloaded from the bus, then followed our guide into town along the Stour (pronounced stew-er by our guide, but wikipedia says it rhymes with ‘flour’ so who knows?) River.

All along the river are ancient (and simply old) buildings and houses. Some of the oldest buildings are these, originally part of a monastery by the Blackfriars, circa 1237. Currently, they’re being used as school classrooms.

Aside from that, the river is mostly lined with houses, dating between medieval times to just a few hundred years old.

Also on the river is the Marlowe Theatre, which is a modern building (no pics, since it was surrounded by scaffolding). There is a piece of art depicting a mask, a symbol of theatre. Rob appears to be looking for its ear.

Anyway, the centre of town is surrounded by walls built during Roman times (AD 43-410).

The big building, however, is the Cathedral of Canterbury, build in AD 597. It’s huge and strikes an imposing figure above the city.

The cathedral is also surrounded by walls, making it difficult to photograph. There’s an ornate gate in the walls to allow entrance.

We toyed with buying a ticket to go inside, but at nearly $35 Canadian, it was a bit steep, considering we had just 20 minutes to see it. We opted instead for a viewing platform, which gave us a good overall look at the place.

Then it was back to the bus and back to the ship. There were shuttle busses from the ship into Dover and to Dover Castle offered throughout the day, but Rob and I both had nasty head colds and the only thing we did after returning to the ship was take Sudafed and go to bed. We did get another nice view of the white cliffs on the way back to the ship, though.

On to London!

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