Dover Castle and The White Cliffs of Dover

All year, Saturdays have been a bust.  Our oldest has school on Saturdays.  He has been out for about two weeks and we have not been wasting time.  Last week, we spent the weekend at Alton Towers. This week, we took a day trip to Dover.  

Dover is located about 2.5 hours away from us without traffic.  We got up early, packed a picnic and headed out about 7:30.  We were there by the time Dover Castle opened its doors at 10am.

English Heritage

Dover Castle is an English Heritage site.  English Heritage runs the site just as they run Stonehenge and thousands of sites around England. You do not need to be a member as they do sell admission tickets to the general public.  However, membership is well worth it as it gives you access to all the sites for a year as well as sites in Scotland, a quarterly magazine with upcoming events and free parking at all the sites.  We purchased our family pass in May when we visited Stonehenge. If you visit 3-4 sites, you break even.  Visit more and the membership more than pays for itself. 

Dover Castle

Dover Castle overlooks the English Channel/Strait of Dover.  The castle was built in the year 1180 by King Henry II, the first in a long line of Platagenet Kings. He was also the ruler over a large area of France known as the Angevin Empire. He was the father of King John, the signer of the Magna Carta.  His conflict with the Church led to the murder of his one time friend, Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury. There is an introductory presentation at the castle that explains the Angevine Empire and the role of Henry and his children from its height to its decline in the 13th century. 

The castle structure is original.  The contents are not.  How do I know?  The sure way to test this is to have your children try to sit on the furniture.  If it is the real deal, they will not be allowed to do so.  Therefore, it is a great place for kids to explore.  They can't break anything valuable.

Dover Castle has been an important fortification since the 12th century and even before.  One of the oldest structures on the castle grounds is a Roman lighthouse built around 43 AD.  Some of the more recent structures were added in the late 1800's and were used in World War I.  In addition to being a medieval castle, the grounds also contain secret tunnels, and underground hospital and signaling station used by the Royal Navy in World War I. The Strait of Dover contains hundreds of shipwrecks from as early as the Bronze Age. 

      

It is a great day out for families.  There are picnic tables all over the grounds and plenty of space for children to run around.  The seagulls will join you at your picnic.  There is a cafe and a restaurant, but if the weather is nice, a picnic is great and doesn't take up much time. 

It is a very windy location so it is best to be prepared for any weather. While it didn't rain while we were there, storm clouds were on the horizon.  Being so close to the sea and in the UK, rain is always likely.

We spent about 4 hours at Dover Castle.  We did not see it all, but with our membership, we can come back to explore the rest at a later date.  We headed off to the White Cliffs for the rest of the afternoon.

The White Cliffs of Dover

Just a short drive from Dover Castle are the famous White Cliffs of Dover.  The Cliffs are managed by the National Trust, another membership driven organization that uses proceeds to preserve their various sites. We are not members yet, but the only charge here is 3.50 to park your car (free for members). You park near the visitor center where you will find a cafe and shop.  

The White Cliffs take their name from their white chalk composition.  We saw many examples of this chalk put to good use as people wrote their names in chalk on wooden benches and fencing. The white chalk composition contains black flint streaks. 

There are two hiking trails.  One that takes you to the viewpoint and another that takes you to the lighthouse.  We were going to go towards the lighthouse, but we wandered off the trail, close to the cliff's edge.  It was a steep climb down and up.  By the time we got back on the trail it was getting late.  So we stopped at various viewpoints - mostly to catch our breath.  Probably wouldn't do that again after finding three crosses as a memorial to a group that didn't make it. 

Say "wind"!

The parts of the trail do allow for wheelchair access, but for the most part it is a gravel trail. You can picnic here as well as take a nice nap. The only downside that we did not realize until we looked in the mirror was that the wind was so intense that we all had a bad case of windburn by the time we came home.  The salty air will also make you tired, making for a nice deep sleep.

From the clifftop, you can see France, a mere 22 miles away, on the horizon. You can see the ferry docks and the lines of cars and trucks waiting to embark or disembark the ferry.  Our plan is to take the ferry back from France when we visit Normandy so that we can see the cliffs from the sea. 

With a roadside stop for dinner, we made it home by 8pm in time to shower and pass out from the days exhaustion.  It was a lovely day out that we highly recommend.