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Published: January 1st 2007
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Let's start off by saying that today went better than yesterday.... lol We got up at about 6am to catch a train to Dover, England to see Dover Castle. Dover Castle is one of the oldest sites in all of England. William the Conquerer was the first to start building a fortification on the site in about 1066, but the Romans were there before him and had built a lighthouse to help guide ships across the channel between 50-100 A.D. The lighthouse is believed to be the oldest structure in england. The two ring walls around the castle stand about 50ft high and the keep at the center stands 83ft high. The Castle has a commanding view of the White Cliffs of Dover and of the town of Dover of over 600ft.
What is cool about the castle is that is everything that most people think that a castle should be. Watching “Robin Hood” puts grandiose ideas of what castles look like when in fact most of them are really just glorified houses. Dover Castle is more of the “Robin Hood” style. It wasn't the most beautiful day to visit, but at least it wasn't raining like yesterday. We did
have winds of 65mph though up at the castle. As we were leaving the keep they were getting ready to close it because of safety concerns.
Besides the castle you can also tour underground tunnels that were dug out from medival times all the way through WWII. During WWII the tunnels were substantially expanded as a base of operations for military transports and for RAF defense of southeastern England. These tunnels became very important in the evacuation of British, French, and Belgium troops from Dunkirk, France in 1940. 338,000 troops were evacuated from the coast of France in 9 days in the “Miracle of Dunkirk”. We spent a couple of hours touring the site before heading back to the train station.
Now, it has come to my attention that either the British transportation systems either don't like each other, or they don't like the people that use them. Time and time again I have seen trains arrive at 8:25 only to have had the connecting bus leave at 8:22. It's not that the bus left early, it's scheduled to leave at that time. Such was our case today. We would have had to wait for a bus up
at the castle for 40 minutes just to miss our train back to London by 3 minutes. Luckily a taxi showed up in time to take us back to Dover to catch our train. Otherwise, we would have had to wait a whole hour for the next train.
When we got back we had dinner at Pizza Hut (it was the only thing open) and headed back to the hotel to take a nap so that we could go out tonight and see the fireworks. We hung around the hotel until about 9pm because it's not far walk down to the London Eye (the world's largest ferris wheel) where the fireworks were to be set off. When we walked out the front door of the hotel we were greeted by about 50 London police officers. It was a pretty surprising sight. I asked if they would pose for a picture with me but they declined, surprisingly rudely. By that time they had all the streets from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Square all blocked off to traffic and we only saw about 20 people on our way down to Big Ben and the London Eye. When we finally arrived at
Big Ben there were probably about 10,000 people milling about down by the river. We found a good spot to stand so that we could see the fireworks in front of us and Big Ben behind us and basically camped there for the next 3 hours.
Luckily, by this time the winds and rains had died down so it wasn't too miserable to stand out there other that some annoying people. Right in front of me was a guy who looked like the perfect candidate for a “where are they now” special on Billy Idol. He was about 100lbs heavier, had a goatee with about three days scruff growing around it, and grey, slicked back hair down past his shoulders. A kind of Road Dog Billy Idol. With him was his girlfriend who was a blonde haired, british, Wynona Judd look a like. They probably wouldn't have been so annoying if they weren't sauced and could have kept their hands off each other for at least a minute. On the videos that I took, you can see his hand come into the screen from the right hand side while he is screeming “yeeeaaahhh, yeeeeeaaaahhh!”.
Ok, back to the
Trebuchet
A french designed medival catapult. story.... lol By the time that Big Ben struck midnight there was pretty easily nearly 100,000 people down along Victoria Embankment and the Thames River. I have no idea how many people were at Trafalgar Square and Piccadilly Circus. Traditionally those places are full packed with people as well.
In the end it was probably the best fireworks display that I have ever seen. It was only 15 minutes long but it was an hours' worth of fireworks any where else. The entire experience was great. Standing there watching fireworks at midnight and listening to Big Ben chime in the new year was fantastic. This is a great place for a new years celebration. There is plenty of security but you are not hemmed in like cattle like the people in Times Square. People were not allow to carry alcohol in to the viewing area but they didn't check any bag where I went thru so there was all kinds of drinking going on. The crowds stayed pretty subdued though and there were no real assholes which was nice for a change. It was also really easy to get out of there considering the number of people. We were
Atop Dover Castle
a view of the city of Dover and it's harbor from the top of the castle. The wind up there was amazing. out within probably 10 minutes and in our hotel room within another 10.
It's now 3:30am and we are watching “Air Force One” with Harrison Ford while I'm typing this up and it's time to go to bed. See ya tomorrow.
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Tom
non-member comment
Amazing
That was one of hte coolest articles youwrote about the New Years. Boy I wish I was there. Oh And Robin Hood is cool too. . . Only if Maind Marion was there for some head. Ze End