There'll be bluebirds over the White Cliffs of Dover....

We spent a great day yesterday in Dover, England. We got up really early and took the train to Calais (it took like an hour and a half) and then took the ferry to Dover (also, about an hour and a half.) The port is sort of far from the train station and we were sort of confused about how to check in as foot passengers, but we made it in the end.

The main reason I wanted to go to Dover was the see the famous white cliffs. We've decided that we like to go and visit cliffs now, I guess. :) These were so cool though. There are trails that run along the top of them and they just go on forever! Happily, the weather yesterday was beautiful too. We actually took our coats off and walked around... that was the first time in a while!

Dover also has a huge castle. Unfortunately, it costs over £10 and, perhaps more unfortunately, for two of us that is about $40. So we didn't go into the castle. We did walk around it though and got some great views.

I thought the city of Dover was also very quaint. Overall we really had a great day. Near the end we decided to go back to the cliffs for a little while because there was a lighthouse I wanted to try and go see. It ended up being too far however and we had to turn around because we had to go catch the ferry.

SeaFrance's policy is that foot passengers need to check in 45 minutes before departure. In Calais we arrived about 30-35 minutes before departure and checked in just fine, we went through customs and then waited for about 10 minutes for the bus that took us to the boat. In Dover we arrived about 30 minutes before departure (admittedly, that's a little late) so the woman told us we were too late and put us on the next ferry, but didn't charge us anything extra. That would have been fine if 1)we had known and could have continued to the above mentioned lighthouse, or 2) the next ferry into Calais did not arrive 15 minutes before the last train to Lille left.

When the ferry landed we knew we were going to have to run for it. The train station was not close. So we bust out of the ferry terminal and start high tailing it. Well, Jonathan more than me. I had to stop and rest. The train station seemed even further away then I remembered it and I was thinking the whole time about having to stay the night in the Calais train station. Short story short, we made it with about 2 minutes to spare. I think Jonathan thought I was going to pass out or something because he kept asking me if I was alright (maybe I should start running more...) We were both pretty tired by the time we got home, after walking all day and then running 1.91 km (1.2 miles) through the streets of Calais. Oh well, we had a ton of fun.