Jul 19, 2012

After a blissful 13 hours sleep we decided to visit the Canterbury Roman Museum (built around the ruins of a roman home) only to learn the Olympic Torch relay was going through the town so decided to give all that fuss and all those people a miss and instead headed down to Dover through Hoath ad then back up to Sandwich before heading home. I have to say this is a much prettier ride than we found it on our way to Folkestone last year to catch the Channel Train. It was pouring with rain then and the road was incredibly wet and lots of traffic. Today the weather was balmy and traffic light and road dry. Lovely!

We had a lovely lunch at the Farthingloe Farm Barn and Farm shop complex. The tearooms did a yummy lunch and we were joined by a large assortment of other travellers who discovered the place as well.



Dover Castle firmly planted on the chalk cliffs which dominates the skyline above the township

From there we rode back into Dover and eyed off the castle windows in the cliff face we had visited on our tour last year. It must have been a chilling experience during the war for the locals in this area who could literally see German occupied territory on the other side of the channel on a clear day. Mind you going on the weather this summer (wettest in 100years and temperatures like our Australian winter) there may not have been many of those clear days. We are thankful that there is fine weather forecast for the next week at this point. The temperature has been mild to cool since our arrival so comfortable to get acclimatised to. It also hasn’t been hard to get used to the prolific growth in gardens and along the roadside with beautiful poppies and morning glory and other flowers in abundance. Reminds me of a lot of the old farm gardens I knew as a child.

We managed to stay dry on our way to Sandwich in spite of rain having fallen before we got there. Sandwich is a beautiful whimsical village which used to be a key point along the trail from London to Canterbury and has many beautiful walled gardens as well as narrow streets of what looks like ‘tumbling’ architecture with ancient houses in varying states of bowed and leaning walls giving the appearance they are likely to tumble into the streets but which are impeccably maintained and still standing after all this time. We came across the Bell Hotel again where we had a cool drink on our last visit. No need of one of those today.



A whimsical street view in Sandwich