Dover Castle

Ben and I headed down to Dover Castle today, the 2hr train trip to Dover Priory meant that we didn't get to the castle until 1:30pm (it was a 20min walk from the station to the castle itself, uphill no less grrr, i wasn't happy - the alternative was a £6 taxi ride up but Ben felt like walking)

I recovered from the walk fairly quickly and we were booked in for the 2pm tour of the World War II underground tunnels, and they were really cool!! I think they're the highlight of all the tours i've done so far. Dover Castle was interesting but there weren't a lot of rooms accessible and they were pretty much bare (unlike Hampton Court) - nevertheless they were interesting enough and since we didn't have enough time it was good that they weren't too furnished or we would have spent a lot of time looking at the furnishings.

The only drama of the day was when Ben and I got separated and wouldn't you like to know that there wasn't any reception at the castle - not that it would have mattered, it turns out Ben went to look at the Battlements which were UNDER ground... grrr I search all the paths leading from the keep for him and was about to give up when he finally came back aboveground - and it didn't even occur to him to see what was taking me so long... typical Ben.

I have also realised i haven't actually bought anything in London and our time is running out, we need to head down to Wool by 2pm at the latest since it takes almost 4hrs by train to get there. So tomorrow we're going to rush down to the Tower of London @ 9am spend a couple of hours there, get our bags then go to Waterloo and catch the train. There are some dresses at Monsoon that i like so i'm going to squeeze in a fitting of the dresses there, hopefully i'll get some last minute shopping down otherwise i'm going to be mad...

Pity there's nothing around Lulworth Castle worth seeing, we're basically spending 2 days in a place where there's nothing much to do...


PS: We had a cornish pastry for breakfast, interesting - Ben's one was tastier steak and stilton cheese, my traditional one was boring by comparison - i think there was only 1 piece of meat in it. We didn't really have lunch but had afternoon tea up at the Keep Cafe (the tea was nice but i didn't like the cakes too much). Dinner was a nice steak at the American Steakhouse near Victoria Station, it was surprisingly good.

Ben and I then decided to walk back to Jim's place from Victoria Stn, using this opportunity to take pictures of Buckingham Palace when there weren't a flock of tourists. After that we walked through a badly lit Green Park (but it still seemed surprisingly safe) and then decided that we had to visit Hyde Park. The park was unbelievably badly lit but there were quite a few people there walking, jogging, having a moonlight picnic (don't know how they can see what they're eating though...) we gave up a quarter of the way through and went back to walking along the fringe of Hyde Park then up to Oxford St. It was a nice walk and the train ride gave us sufficient resting time so that our feet are not aching at the end of the day.

There are so many things that i haven't seen in London, i didn't even make it to Harrods (i did walk through Selfridges though nothing really struck my fancy, or the things that did were over £400 - i must have good tastes hehehe). I think i need a couple of more days in London, which means i'll have to come back next time... bugger. Oh well, if Ben's still here i'll save money on accomodation at least.

It's strange but if you think of things in pounds and now Aussie dollars, things definitely seem cheap. For example, a Zone 1-2 ticket for the whole day costs £5.30 - translate that to the Aussie equivalent of a day tripper and London transport is definitely cheaper, especially considering the number of trains available and the efficiency... i guess it's only when you compare the prices that you realise when something is 'better value'. BTW i suggest you read the book 'Predictably Irrational' - it makes a lot of sense.