Trip to Herne Bay

I wrote this post a week or so ago but never published it...

To start I have to give a big THANK YOU to Rosemary Shilling for taking care of us this weekend in Herne Bay. She was a lovely and gracious host.

On Saturday we started by going to Canterbury Cathedral. It is the Mother Church of the Anglican Communion and has roots all the way back to 597AD. After touring the cathedral and its grounds we did a little sight seeing in the city of Canterbury which was a happening little town. There is an old Roman wall around a big portion of the town including the cathedral.

Here are our Canterbury Pictures

Then we went onto Dover England to see the infamous Dover Castle. The castle is so rich in history its tough to know where to start. From being strengthened in 1066 by William the Conqueror to having its tunnels expanded to play a major role in World War II it is a tremendous place for history. Its keep was the home to Henry II and Henry VIII. We were able to take a tour of the Secret World War II Tunnels that would have been a nightmare during the war but a cool thing to see now.

Here are our Dover Castle Pictures. Due to the tremendous weather we were unable see France from Dover so we will have to go back.

On Sunday the weather was raining, windy and cold so we tried to stay dry while doing sight seeing around Herne Bay so most of it was from the car. Luckily Rosemary made reservations at a pub that was built in 1364 named the Red Lion so we were able to get out of the rain and grab some good ol' English grub. She introduced us to the traditional British Sunday roast dinner which is roast beef covered in gravy served with veggies and yorkshire pudding. It was excellent!

The journey home was a bit of headache because they were doing "planned engineering work" on the rail between Canterbury and London. At one point we had to get off the train onto a bus then back on the train into London. Needless to say it took us forever to get home. Arg we need a car...