I made a few wrong directions to Dover Castle. It took a while to get used to the roads in the South of England. Google maps and the car navigator weren’t as helpful as in other regions. Even the road signs worked against me. We saw brown road signs with a picture of a castle, so thought we’d follow this in preference to google. I realised after having trouble finding several castles, that the images were of sandcastles (signs to beaches).
Dover Castle is huge, well-preserved but not as pretty as other castles we have seen. The cliff on which it is situated (opposite France) has been used for defense since 800BC and the Romans built a lighthouse here in AD43. Dover Castle was built by the Normans in the 12th century and has been adapted since that time to new weapons and strategies of warfare, including secret war tunnels built in WWII. We did a tour through the war tunnels (built into the cliffs) and walked through the medieval tunnels built at the base of the hill.
We could have spent far longer than the three hours we explored Dover Castle. Derek (tired from the early start and the introduction to driving on the motorway) was persuaded by the National Trust volunteers to buy a guide book, despite not giving in to this pressure throughout Ireland. I think a reasonable proportion of people in Perth must be from the south of England – there is a strong similarity in driving styles.
I have never seen a castle before this trip, so I didn’t understand it when people said they got tired of looking at castles. I understand it now and I’m relieved I think there’s only Edinburgh Castle to go. I felt over-whelmed with historical content as we went to museums and castles in England’s south. Imagining life in past times sometimes gave me a slightly disconnected feeling as though my own life was part of an apocalyptic futuristic novel /movie.