White Cliffs of Dover

There'll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs over Dover

Tomorrow just you wait and see.

Canterbury is only about a half hour drive from Dover so we headed off for a day trip, with the intent of seeing the Whte Cliffs. When we turned into the road leading us to them we spotted Dover Castle (which we didn't know about) and decided to start with a visit to it first. We were also more than happy to discover that our NZ Historic Trust card gives us reciprocal free entry rights to English Heritage sites, as well as National Trust sites. The castle sits on top of the White Cliffs, and is described in Wikipedia as
"Dover Castle is a medieval castle in Dover, Kent. It was founded in the 12th century and has been described as the "Key to England" due to its defensive significance throughout history. It is the largest castle in England."

The highlights for us were the secret wartime tunnels that were built in 1797 to house barracks for soldiers. These tunnels were used again during WW 2 as a bombproof centre for the defence of the coast. We queued for nearly an hour for a tour of these tunnels, and the wait was worth it. A series of multi-media presentations gave us a excellent overview of the war in relation to the area. It was from these tunnels that Vice-Admiral Betram Ramsay directed the evacuation from the beaches of Dunkirk in the 1940.

After some lunch in the cafeteria we climbed to the top of the great tower, which gave us excellent views including looking down on the port where we could see all the freight trucks waiting to board the ferries.

Next stop were the cliffs. We drove to the National Trust car park and headed off on foot. Initially we thought we would just walk to the 'lookout' but we were enjoying ourselves so much we continued onto the light-house, a good 50 minutes which gave us some views of the famous cliffs. Unfortunately the day was cloudy so the views across to France hazy and the best views of the cliffs would be best from the sea. We also passed by some more tunnels that have only recently been discovered and these too are open to the public though we were too late in the day to do this.

The other highlight of the day was seeing the site and memorial to the French aviator Louis Bleriot. On 25 July 1909 he flew the first powered flight across the channel and crash landed near where we were parked. The stone silhouette is set into the ground and marks the spot where he landed.

All in all a good day.

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A Canterbury Tale

The south-east of England was somewhere we hadn't visited so were keen to put it on our itinerary this trip. We picked up another rental car on Monday morning, packed it with the camping gear and headed off down the M1 to Canterbury. We had been very careful to check the weather as we weren't keen on either wet or cold. All looked fine for the week but don't trust the forecast !! It rained each night though the days were fine until Thursday when there was torrential rain and thunder storms. It caused flash flooding and havoc for some people so we were lucky that the tent held up and we were warm and dry.

 

 

Our camp site was well situated and just a twenty minute walk into town. We spent four days here exploring both Canterbury and its surrounds. We visited Canterbury Cathedral, walked some of the city walls, browsed the streets and visited a tourist attraction 'Canterbury Tales' - "Chaucer’s famous tales of medieval misadventures,".

http://canterburytales.org.uk/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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A Sunday Outing

Last Sunday we all went on on outing to Bealieu, near Southampton. Andrew is the club treasurer of the Sunbeam Motorcycle club and the club was running their annual Graham Walker Memorial run for pre 1940 motor cycles. Andrew's Mum is also here at present so all five of us squeezed into the Hyundai, along with a picnic lunch Jessica had packed, and headed two hours down the motorway.

 

The rally started off from a lovely setting in Beaulieu, a private estate, that also has the National Motor Museum. After enjoying our picnic lunch we wandered around and looked at the 100 or so bikes that were lined up to take part in the 40mile rally around the local roads. It was a very interesting collection of vintage bikes all with very passionate riders, many of them only too willingly to talk about their machine. We even got to sit on one!

 

After watching them all set off we went over to the museum. There was an extensive collection of both cars and motor cycles, ranging from the very first vehicles up to 2014 models that tell the story of British motoring. There was even a section on the car racing industry so there was plenty for all of us to enjoy.

http://www.beaulieu.co.uk/attractions/national-motor-museum/

 

 

 

 

We finished the outing by watching many of the bikes return from their run before heading back home again.

 

 

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Lille, France

When we were booking our trip to Brussels we thought that we it would be quite nice to visit another city as well so we chose Lille, not far from the Belgium border and also on the Eurostar line.

We arrived by bus, it taking just an hour and a half through the Belgium and French countryside. Our bus took us to the very heart of the Lille's transport system with Eurolille station being only a ten minute walk from our accommodation. Our self-catering hotel room The Calm, was an excellent choice of location and very good value for our NZ dollar. Within minutes of leaving our hotel we were in Lille Centre with its Grand Place, the Lille Cathedral and old Lille, and we spent our three days exploring on foot. We probably did more than a few extra kms than needed as it was very easy to lose your bearings and just when you thought you were near your destination we found we were several streets away in the wrong direction!! Thank goodness for the mapping system on the iPad. It works like a mini GPS and shows you exactly where you are.

 

 

 

 

Lille is a city of just under 200 000 and dates back many centuries to when it was a fortified town. It was a target in both WW1 and WW 2 and many of their beautiful buildings were destroyed. But just like the Belgiums they wanted their buildings returned to how they looked before the wars and looking at them today it is difficult to such devastation ever took place. We got a very good overview of the whole city by climbing the several hundred stairs of the Town Hall Belfry to their viewing platform.

 

 

 

 

 

The Art Gallery, the Palais Beaux-Arts Lille was also worthy of a visit, with many old masters paintings. We spent over two hours browsing the galleries with me trying to use my school French to understand the descriptions. I did better than I thought!

 

 

 

A Bruegel, my favourite.

 

There are several green areas close to the centre and we took the opportunity to enjoy the spaces. One included the Citadel, and ancient fortication that is still used today by the military. It was lovely to see so many people out enjoying it too - office workers jogging in their lunch hour, dozens of children in Out of School Holiday programmes, as well as lots of families.

 

 

 

 

The entrance to the Citadel.

 

 

 

We certainly enjoyed our French break, and Lille is certainly a popular tourist destination with such easy access on the Eurostar. There is plenty to see, lots of shopping and plenty of eating establishments and we found the French most accommodating with our limited French. Much more so than in previous visits to Paris and Nice. Maybe it is the close proximity to Belgium.

 

 

 

 

This shop is called Eden Park, the rugby legend!

 

 

 

Au revoir France as we caught the Eurostar back to the UK.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Brussels

Day two with our tour guide was in and around Brussels, the capital city of Belgium and headquarters to the Euuopean Union. But before we started our tour proper of Brussels we saw a little of Overijise, the small town closest to Susan and Roger's place. It is a town of about 22 000 people and because of it's rural aspect it is an attractive area to live. In the village of Jezus-Eik (part of Overijse) is the church of Our Beloved Lady and it is famous for the pilgrimages made to see the Jesus Oak. Miracles could be had by touching this tree, which now is merely a stump, but still able to be touched, inside the church. The stories date back to the 17 th century. Even the art work is reason enough to visit this church which lines the walls.

The village centre of Overijse. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overijse

 

The remaining part of the Jesus Oak.

 

 

 

 

Brussels is a fascinating city with its new and old buildings often side by side. Susan pointed out various buildings on our way into the city, and explaining their different styles of archetecture with Art Nouveau having a strong influence. Our city tour started by taking us to the Royal Palace, which dates back to the 18th century, where we were free to wander through all the reception rooms. The first Belgium king was King Leopold in 1831.

 

 

 

 

We then parked the car for the day and did a walking tour through the main city with Susan pointing out the interesting features of the city. We saw the covered shopping galleries built for King and Queen, sampled Belguim chocolate, saw the Brussels Town Hall with its fine archetecture, the spectacular stained glass windows in the cathedral and the famous Mannekin Pis. The day we saw him he was in his birthday suit but we understand he has a whole wardrobe of costumes he can wear, depending on the occasion.

 

 

The City Hall with its fine archetecture including the central portal that isn't symmetrically lined up and according to legend caused the architect to take his life by jumping from it on its completion.

 

 

 

 

King's Gallery

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. "Manneken Pis is a landmark small bronze sculpture in Brussels, depicting a naked little boy urinating into a fountain's basin. It was designed by Hiëronymus Duquesnoy the Elder and put in place in 1618 or 1619".

 

 

Susan had us ducking in and out of shops and buildings to show us specific points of interest such as a bakery/patisserie, original bars and into the cafe of the traditional puppet theatre. At one stage we stopped for lunch at a 'le pain du quotidien' cafe, where we enjoyed our lunch at a communal table.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"It is said among locals that the statue of Everard t'Serclaes brings luck and grants the wishes of all who touch it."

 

 

One iconic sight we actually saw the day before on our way home from the Battlefields tour. This was the Atomium, built for the 1958 Brussels World Fair and like the Eiffel Tower not suppose to remain after the event but here it still is, now a symbol of Brussels.

 

 

 

 

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