Tuesday 01/01/2019
By Ferry to the White Cliffs of Dover and Canterbury
New Year's Day was a long travel day for us. We were up bright and early for a taxi to the Paris Nord train station. We got there far too early, but we always need time to accommodate mistakes. For instance, the bellman did not have us on his list of taxi reservations which the front desk had confirmed with me the prior evening before we ever left for Milan and Christina's party. Thus, the need to start early and give ourselves plenty of leeway.The first train was great. We had reserved seats and it was a leisurely train ride through the French countryside. The second train, however, was a different story. Online, eurail.com did not allow for reservations for this part of the trip. This is always sketchy with European trains; and in this case, the train was packed and we had to shove ourselves on board. Kayla was last and we almost left her (all by herself), but fear kicked in and she shoved herself onto the train. We did not even put our luggage in the storage spaces for this trip. We had our four over-sized luggage bags just clogging the aisle with all of the other people who were standing.
In Calais which was the terminating station for this train, Kayla was about to die to find a bathroom. The first one that took money was closed for repairs. The one in the restaurant at the train station took only exact change. She was pretty desperate by the time Momma found her some British coins, of which, Momma was not too happy to give away as she had wanted to keep them for mementos. We took a taxi to the ferry station, made it through customs and onto the ferry although Momma almost died going up the ramps. Kayla had gotten us first class so that was very nice so I had two free champagnes.
We all saw the white cliffs of Dover as we got to England. There were no taxis outside but we had one guy show up at double price since he said it was a holiday. We still rode with him to our hotel in Canterbury.
Canterbury is not that far from Dover, maybe 20 miles or so. We had a little trouble finding the hotel, but eventually located its driveway and our driver pulled up to an enormous English country estate. I had seen pictures of the place when I booked the hotel online, but I suppose I really did not appreciate its grandeur online. Right away, I was thinking "did I look at the rate correctly?" I ran inside to see if we had the right place. It was, amazingly, the right place so we unloaded all of our heavy luggage and I got the taxi driver's card to arrange pick-up for the morning if we needed him.
The hotel still had its Christmas tree in the lobby with two fireplaces blazing and a ceiling that had to be twenty feet high. We got checked-in and up the stairs (we were almost at the top of the stairs) to our room which we all shared. No problem there. This room had plenty of space for all four of us and large windows looking out over the pastures behind the main house. We were all very impressed.
Before it got too dark, I walked everyone outside so that we could walk around the house to appreciate the estate. We did not walk too far from the house, but we did walk all the way around it. The side garden was a little eerie with two life-sized statues, both missing their heads. We finished outside as it was pretty much too dark to see anything by the time we made it all the way around the house so we returned inside, sat in the lobby for just a bit and then moved to the bar (more like a clubhouse pub) which had another large fireplace burning with no kids. There were plenty of kids in the lobby around the Christmas tree.
We ate at a small table beside the fireplace and pretty much had the place to ourselves. All four of us had the meat pie and we were all very happy. We had dessert and drinks by the fireplace afterwards. By that time, it was time for bed as we had an early morning. The idea of getting up really early and leaving this manor house seemed pretty sad so we decided to get our taxi to pick us up later (9:30am) and drive us all the way to Heathrow. The idea of two trains through London with heavy bags during rush hour seemed too daunting a task. We were all happy with this idea and I think we all slept better because of it (although I did dream of the lady that died falling down the stairs).
Here are some pictures of us in the first class lounge on the ferry crossing the English Channel.
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| White Cliffs of Dover |
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| Dover Castle |
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| You can see the Christmas tree in the left lobby window. |
This picture is from the rear of the house. That is our bedroom suite in the middle on the second floor with the lights blazing. The stairwell where the previous owner died is on the lower left.
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| Our bedroom suite. |
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| Whompass Tree |
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| First headless statue. |
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| Second headless statue. |
These pictures are from the lobby clubhouse pub where we had dinner.
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| I love the ceiling moldings and the fireplaces. |
Page 2: London to Paris on the Eurostar
Page 3: Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower
Page 4: The Louvre and the Petit Palais
Page 5: Galleries Lafayette and Dinner
Page 6: New Year's Eve in Paris
Page 7: By Ferry to the White Cliffs of Dover and Canterbury
Page 8: Our Last Day in England
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