Dover

Dover might be my favorite little town in England. The entire time I've been here, people have been friendly and welcoming and going out of their way to be helpful. My kind of people.
I stayed at the Castle, a really nice pub inn in the middle of town. It's been around for centuries, and is perfectly situated between the train station and the trails to Dover Castle and the cliffs. I made friends with Dave, the bartender, who hung out and played darts with his son even when Paul, the owner, took over tending. Dave was in the army and had a bunch of buddies coming to town Saturday, and was sad I wouldn't be around long enough to join them. His son was going off to the army as well in January.

Paul was an interesting guy as well. He bought the place for a picture of Angelina Jolie smacking Brad Pitt during a tiff, apparently. Once we begged him enough, he played a lovely bit of piano for us as well.

Once I got in, I dropped off my bags and made straight for Dover castle. It was raining, but seeing as I only had a limited amount of time to explore, I was willing to rough it.

The castle itself has a fascinating history. It was built in medieval times, expanded and improved upon by Henry II, the father of Richard the Lionheart and John, both of whom feature in the Robin Hood tales. Later on during the Napoleonic Wars, tunnels were built into the cliffs within the castle to house soldiers in case of attack. Those tunnels were then used during WWII, both as a hospital and as barracks for the troops. Operation Dynamo was headquartered here, which supervised an impossible troop recovery from France once the Germans took over, and the castle served as the front lines for England for the years following. It was bombed early and often, causing the placement of massive guns with the range of up to 30 miles, 10 miles into France. They had a really interesting exhibition that showed what they would do under attack, and the processes and procedures that had to be endured before the big guns could fire, at planes or at incoming ships.

I was really impressed with how the underground exhibits were handled. They had lights at the top of doors, red and green, which displayed when it s safe to move on, just as they did when air raids were taking place. They had a briefing room that displayed videos on the walls and on a map on the table that showed the German offensive and the French and British reactions. There was also a large tunnel we walked through with a huge video display projected on the walls, which gave an idea of how news traveled and how tense things might have been underground. They also had examples set up in the hospital area of how the cots and meals might have been, and had a steady drone of chatter on in the background to demonstrate how it had been with a lot of people living down there. We were also able to see the message tubes that were used to shoot messages around and the morse code stations where they heard the reports.

After that, I explored the rest of the actual castle, which was decorated up from King Henry's time. I love exploring all the nooks and crannies of places like this, and so much of it was open to poke around in. The grounds were also fun to explore, even in the rain.

The next day dawned clearer, and my roommate and I went for a two mile walk along the white cliffs to a nearby lighthouse. The trip there was nice as we chatted, but the rain came up again briefly on the way back, and being at the top of the cliffs with the rain and wind wasn't the warmest thing in the world, but we managed. It was so quiet and peaceful up there, compared to the bustle of the port, which we could hear again once we rounded the last bend.

After a parting drink (or two) on the house, I left the lovely city of Dover for my home away from home for the last time this trip: Northampton.