When we woke up and went up on deck, we were just in time to watch our ship come up to the dock. The white cliffs were on the port side and Dover Castle on top. So we started with a photographic session before settling down to a good breakfast.

After having talked to our tablemates and listened to the port lecturer, we decided that since Dover has mainly a castle and white cliffs, we may be better off taking the train to Canterbury a mere 20 minutes away by train. We walked from the ship to the train station in about 30 minutes, purchased our tickets, and hopped onto the train.

We had gotten a map of Canterbury at the Tourist Information and decided on a route through town. Canterbury, as we later learned, was an old Roman city. But after the Romans left in about 400 AD, the Roman city slowly crumbled. In 600 AD St. Augustine converted the Saxons and built a cathedral and Benedictine monastery which, of course, was sacked by the Vikings. Only after the Normans won, did William the Conqueror rebuild the Cathedral, the city, and especially the defensive wall around it. So Canterbury is basically a walled medieval city. About half of the wall is still standing. From the train station, we could walk over to the wall and along it to the oldest section of the town where the cathedral is.

That is were we made our first stop. We paid the entrance fee to the Cathedral complex and ventured in. It still was early, so we did not have to contend with too many tour groups. The church is enormous. The part for the lay people as large as most churches and then you have another part just as large originally for the monks. In between is a portal with Platagenet kings, as a kindly docent told us. When you looked up right there in the middle, you could see high above a beautiful ceiling. The docent told us, that there was a trapdoor way up there to hoist up the material for the tower that was above. I cannot imagine being up there and hoisting material up.

The front part of the church with the high altar was just as beautiful. Of course, one of the important historical happenings in the church was the murder of Thomas Beckett. You could see the spot he was killed with the sword hanging above it and in the middle of the high altar region a single candle burnt were the shrine to Thomas Beckett had been before Henry VIII had it torn down.

All around were sarcophagi of important people, the Black Prince, St Augustine, and different archbishops from the early periods. One archbishop had an especially colorful and elaborate niche. A docent told us, that he had founded a college in Oxford and every 50 years, the people from the college come and paint all the little statues and pictures. It was about due for another painting session, but compared to the others it still was colorful.

We went down to the crypt, no photography allowed, were the old church St. Augustine built is still in use. You could see the beautiful Romanesque architecture. They also had the church treasures there, with a Episcopal staff from the 12th century.

The crypt led to the crosswalk of the cloister and it truly was beautiful. You could imagine walking quietly around here with the high towers of the church looking down. Finally outside, we tried to get a picture of the church. Here a true wide angle would have been useful, since our panoramic shots seemed to distort the vertical lines of the church. Part of the church was being cleaned and refurbished. We could already see one part that had been cleaned and indeed it was a beautiful light yellow color.

After the cathedral, we walked around the town. We started walking along a pedestrian mall and I enjoyed taking pictures of signs hanging out for the pubs, the old houses, and other oddities. As Bob said, you could swing a cat and hit something picturesque. A small stream runs through the city and they offer boatrides in a rowboat. No, you don't have to row, they do it for you. But we declined. Instead we had lunch at a Subway; but the Subway also was in a really old building with smoke-blackened beams and very uneven floors.

After that we tried to get to the old Greyfriars abbey on an island in the middle of the little stream. We stopped at the City Museum of Canterbury. It is housed in the oldest church and living quarters, St. Mary, the poor priests' church. These were the priests that were old and retired. The building is from the 12th century and walking underneath ceiling rafters that are 800 years old gives you a funny feeling. The museum itself gives you a wonderful overview of the history of the city, which in itself is a history of the different people that lived in (Britons), conquered (Romans), settled (Anglo-Saxon), pillaged (Vikings), and again conquered (Normans) southern England. Then there was the religious turmoil starting with St. Augustine converting the heathens. They had the story of Thomas a Beckett as a rather interesting tapestry aimed at children with picture panels representing each event or scene. Since I never really had heard the whole story, I too found it interesting. The Tudors brought bloodshed to it all. The whole museum was really interesting.

From the museum we headed to the grounds of the old Grayfriars Abbey which now was just a park in the middle of the river. The little bridge leading us across the river stood close to the old abbey guesthouse the only part of the abbey that is still standing.

With map and GPS we easily found the old castle. It is now a ruins, at least protected. From being a proud castle during Norman years it went through several uses ending up as a storage warehouse for coal with all the interior walls removed. What a let down. We took all the pictures we could and then headed for the railroad station. We checked the train schedule and found the next train, 20 minutes later, was an express, while beyond we only had locals. Well, we wanted to find a cheap store for some wine to smuggle back on board. At the beginning of the day, we had bought two bottles of 7-Up that by now were almost empty and made marvelous smuggling containers.

Where the map said there would be a superstore, we found a Netto, a store we had frequented in Denmark that is similar to Aldi or Lidl. Unfortunately, they did not have a liter container of wine. So I finally decided on a 740 ml bottle of rose that had a screw top. I also purchased a half liter bottle of beer. Thus weighed down, we headed back to the station, but missed the express by a couple of minutes. Since we had time until the next train, we headed to the park that was on the other side of the city wall (Dane John Park), settled on a bench and started decanting the wine. It fit nicely into the 7-Up bottles. I put the beer into one coat pocket, a 7-Up bottle in the other, and Bob put the other 7-Up bottle into his pants pocket and we were set. While all this was going on, we watched a group of kids, 10-12 years old, frolicking in the park after school, probably waiting for the train. We sighed as they, in white shirt and dress pants, headed up the embankment of the wall and then slid down on the grass--those pants won't last long under that treatment!!!!

The train was a local, and at each stop some of the schoolkids got off. It was a restful trip back to Dover. So we decided to walk through the city before heading back to the ship. The town is a mix of very old and modern buildings. It probably was bombed rather heavily during WWII which would account for the modern buildings. Over the city towered the castle, always visible. In one street we found a cheap shoe store. Now, I had not brought my sandals and I really missed them and wanted to find a replacement pair. I did find a nice one, and since it had a tag of "get a second pair free" I kept looking around till I found a nice white pair of shoes that also fit and would be nice to wear with my lighter clothes. After so much shopping, Bob agreed to settle outside a little pub in market square, so that I could have a Guinness. It tasted as good as Guinness on tap tastes and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

Thus well fortified, we headed for the water where we got a really good view of our ship with tiny sailboats having a race in front of it. Looking to the other side, we could see the castle, the white cliffs, and the ferry terminal. All very photogenic. After this we went plodding back to the ship. We got there about 6PM (all aboard was 6:30PM). First seating for dinner is 5:45--after all, this is an American ship--so we just headed up to the buffet to get something to eat. After that we watched the ship slowly heading out of the harbor, with last pictures of Dover, the castle, and the white cliffs in the fading light of the evening. By then we were tired enough to just go back to the cabin and to bed.