Showing posts with label Dover. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dover. Show all posts

Friday, March 18, 2011

Chet & Chris come to England! Part 1

We have been so fortunate to have people visit us in England already! Thomas' parents came to see us for two weeks this month. We had lots of fun exploring England with them, going to the pub, and just relaxing! I was sick the first week they were here, so they explored with Thomas some while I recovered at home. They got a tour of RAF Lakenheath, and walked around our little town of Ely. 

Thomas, Chet, and Zoe
Chet & Chris in the Ely Cathedral
They were so lucky - they got to see the best loo in England!
Monday we took a road trip to northern England. We stopped in Nottingham first, which is known for its Robin Hood history. We drove down Maid Marian Way, saw the Nottingham Castle (it was closed so we weren't able to go in), and walked around the cute little city.

Nottingham
Me, Thomas, and Chet with a Robin Hood statue in Nottingham
Next we continued north to Lyme Park. This is where they filmed some scenes with Pemberley House for the Pride and Prejudice TV series. Thomas and I hadn't seen the TV series (although I want to now!), but it was still amazing to see this beautiful house, and the even more beautiful surrounding gardens. The gardens weren't even in bloom, yet they were still so pretty and well maintained.

Lyme Park gardens
Beautiful house at Lyme Park
Finally, we continued on to Liverpool which is on the northwest coast of England. We were originally searching for a house that had been converted to a coffee shop that was the first place the Beatles ever performed. We found the house (maybe), but it wasn't a coffee shop, so we're not positive we were in the right spot. So we decided to find the Cavern Club, which is a club the Beatles played at over 300 times in their career. We immediately knew we were in the right area - there were Beatles statues, posters, and shops everywhere around us! It was pretty cool to be around all that music history, and even cooler to go into the Cavern Club. We sat down, had a pint, and listened to a guy play Beatles songs on stage. AWESOME. 

Me and Thomas in the Cavern Club - the Beatles used to play on that very stage behind us!
Chet and Chris in front of the Cavern Club
Zoe helping Thomas play dominoes ;)
Game night!
Thomas took his parents to Dover one day (I wasn't feeling well enough to do all the walking around there, so I stayed at home). They walked along the tops of the White Cliffs of Dover, explored the old war tunnels in the cliffs, went to Dover Castle, and the Battle of Britain Museum. A very productive day!

Chris and Chet at the White Cliffs of Dover
They climbed to the bottom of the cliffs on this ladder! Scary!
Beautiful view
Thomas and Chet
To be continued! :)

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Dover

Thanksgiving weekend we road-tripped to the White Cliffs of Dover. It's about 2.5 hours from our house, but the drive went by fast and the scenery was beautiful - much prettier than the drive from Tucson to Phoenix ;) Once we got to the cliffs we hiked along the tops of them, explored the town a little, and found tons of stuff we want to do next time we go there :)

First time I've had to scrape ice off my car!!


The beautiful drive
The port




Castle
Thomas and the dogs on top of the cliffs

I think France is out there somewhere!




On the drive home we thought our GPS was taking us the way with no toll roads, but...we were wrong. We ended up in central London in line for a toll booth, with no British money. Well, we had 1 pound and 20 pence, and the toll was 1 pound and 50 pence. We had Euros, U.S. money, British checks, and all our cards, but we were 30 pence short and they wouldn't let us through. We didn't know what to do, we would have turned around if we could and found another way but apparently that wasn't an option. The supervisor came over and said they take Euro bills, but not coins (we only had coins of course), but he eventually let us through for only 1 pound and 20 pence :) Lesson learned: Always have 5 pounds in the car, just in case!