Battle Village

After Hastings I drove out to the village of Battle, a small, very touristy settlement a few miles northwest of Hastings. It originally sprang up to serve the abbey that William the Conqueror built in atonement for his wholesale slaughter of the English a few years before. Sorta like if Hitler had built a lot of roads to make up for... oh, wait... never mind. Of course, the English would have been MUCH better off if the Norwegians had beaten them at Stamford Bridge a few weeks earlier. Just sayin'.

All pics from Battle here.

Nice, but very touristy.


According to tradition (another way of calling "bullshit") the English king Harold Goodwinson died here, and the high altar of the abbey was built over the site. The abbey was reduced to its present state of rubble during the Dissolution of the monasteries under that magnificently brilliant fuck Henry VIII.


The low building to the left is where the monks shat. Just thought you'd like to know.


Apparently the battle was won by the Normans through a tactic wherein they feigned retreat, only to turn around and attack the pursuing Anglo-Saxons, whose lines were by then stretched out. This happened several times during the day. Honestly, that's the dirtiest trick ever; who expects the FRENCH to fight?


The battlefield. Perhaps the most ENGLISH landscape I've ever seen.


The great gatehouse, which was rebuilt sometime in the 14th century houses a shop and a small museum.


I can't remember the name of this place, but it was just across the road from the abbey. I had lunch there, and let me tell you: Whatever you do, DON'T have the hamburger. There was a sign saying the building was from c. 1420, and the meat can't have been much younger.

Hastings

This morning I drove on down from Dover to the city of Hastings. The city is famous for the "Battle of Hastings", but in reality the battle took place more than ten miles inland from there, at a place now somewhat unimaginatively named... "Battle".

Anyways, modern Hastings is nothing much, mainly a seaside resort but it does have the ruins of an old castle the Normans built four years after the invasion, on a cliff overlooking the city. On a warm, sunny day it's very peaceful and nice to walk around up there, although unless you're obsessed with English history you can probably drop the £4.25 ticket to the ruins and just settle for the magnificent views. There's a park more or less surrounding the castle grounds, and several very nice properties to be looked at.

Along the road from Dover, I spotted this car. I just had to stop, turn back and document the wonderful imagery. This is truly art! If you don't know what this is, you need to re-examine your life. Seriously.


Ish nice.


Ish alsho nice.


The ruins of a church. Just the right state of repair for any religious building.


More ruins.


The most adventurous 60 seconds I spent in the castle grounds were spent in the basement. No, nothing happened there either, but at least it was cool.


Sucking up to the French. Bah!


I may not have the majesty of an eagle, but I can still crap on your head.

Dover Castle

After the cliffs, I drove on for two minutes to the magnificent Dover Castle. The castle is absofuckinlutely huge, the largest in England and contains everything from a Roman lighthouse to WW2 tunnels. I must hang my head in shame and admit right now that I didn't bother with the WW2 stuff, since it was a long wait to get in, and I was beginning to suffer from old ruins overdose. Apparently the underground tunnels, which was the British HQ during the evacuation from Dunkirk in 1940, started life as barracks for troops to fight an eventual French invasion during the Napoleonic Wars. I pwomise to see 'em and report back next time, mmmkay?

Dover was a very important harbour, one of the Cinque Ports (pronounced "sink") of yore. In addition to regular trade, the area was also home to thousands of smugglers over the years, taxes and tariffs being no more popular than today. The castle itself became known as "the key to England", when the Normans started building it in the 12th century. Like with so many ancient castles, there have been numerous reconstructions and additions. I'll let the pics do the talkin' from now on:

An Irish wolfhound, belonging to one of the many volunteers who act around the castle. About the size of a small pony (the dog, not the volunteer).


From the Royal chambers in the keep - several of the English kings spent time at Dover.


Gaudy colors, but apparently this was quite common way back when. I've even read that the old Greek marble statues used to be painted in bright colors.


This is my hole and I'm bloody well staying here!


View from the roof of the keep - north.


View to the south.


The keep in all its splendor - and this was just one part of the castle.


A model of the keep.


I can't help it... I get misty-eyed when I see Union Jack waving in the wind.


The Roman lighthouse.


Ancient boomstick. So ancient, it's not even boom.


Some modern boomsticks. Now THESE make LARGE boom.


What a scribe's workplace looked like.


Where they kept the money. Sweet, sweet money.


Finally, a wascally wabbit sniffing around the castle grounds.

The White Cliffs of Dover

"There'll be bluuuuuuebirds oooooover
the white cliffs of Dooooover..."

Not bloody likely, as the bluebird is an exclusively North American species, and the yank who wrote those words had probably never even seen Dover. Yesterday I finally got a chance to see the white cliffs with my own eyes, and let me tell you; they're mighty purdy. Dover town isn't much, nothing like Canterbury, but the cliffs are well worth a look, both from afar, as a grand sight and close up, as a geological wonder.

The strikingly white cliffs are made from chalk, interspersed with dark flintstones. The chalk is formed by the remains of long dead algae and other living things from hundreds of millions of years ago. The stone wall is slowly being washed away by the sea, sometimes less than a centimeter a year, sometimes large chunks of rock fall down. Ironically, these huge chalk hills, which can be found over large parts of England, are known as "downs" locally - from Anglo-Saxon "dün", meaning hill. Which is why you can hear an Englishman say he's been "up on the downs", and not feel the urge to back away slowly, being careful not to make eye contact.

All white cliff pics here.

Modern Dover harbour, where the ferries go back and forth between England and France.


Sho, sho purdy. Looking north.


The view south. The buildings on the hill far away are part of Dover Castle.


Typical "Downs" geology - a comparatively thin layer of grassland on top of many meters of chalk.


This pic may look like a flat field, but it's actually a steep hill.

Quote of the Day

Continental people have sex, the English have hot-water bottles.
- George Mikes

Deal Castle

My third and final touristy destination yesterday, was Deal Castle. Deal is a small town out by the sea, where Henry VIII (8 for you numerically challenged out there) built one of his many fortresses around the coast to protect the nation from a possible joint Catholic onslaught. The money to finance this huge building project was, ironically, taken from the many monasteries he'd just nationalized...

The castle is quite large, and built in the form of a Tudor rose. It was quite modern for its time, with multiple layers of defense and very thick walls.


Kalabalooom.


What makes kalabaloom.


A deep bread oven. Mmmmmm, bread.


Down at the bottom of this slope there was a long, narrow, unlit passage to the left. I took it till I suddenly found myself in water, then I turned back.


The luverly (not) North Sea. There were actually people swimming near the shore. The British are mad.

Richborough

After a couple of very pleasant hours in Canterbury, I moved on to Richborough Castle, aka Rutupiae, the ruins of one of the earliest Roman settlements in England. Nowadays the site is a couple of miles inland, but back then the beach went almost right up to the buildings (and much of the land further out was an island which only quite recently became part of the "mainland").

Rutupiae went from the first wooden fort in AD 43 through several cycles of building, reconstruction and destruction. At one point the Romans built a huuuge arch here, quite famous in its time as the gate to Britain, and it marked the start of their paved road system leading from Kent to Canterbury and further on to London. Today, the A2 road pretty much covers the same stretch of land.

Nowadays there's not much left except ruins. Some ditches have been re-dug, to show where the original, much longer ditches where placed, but there's little to give you an idea of the vast military might and wealth of the Roman Empire manifested in the buildings and settlements that once covered the grounds. Therefore it is essential that you get a free audio guide and read the informative text put up around the site. As with most English Heritage sites they are excellent, and will really help you make sense of what would otherwise be just a heap of stone.


Concentric ditches and remains of defensive structures, which were later turned into civilian structures or rebuilt completely.


The old "mansio" - a building that probably stood more or less untouched through the several phases, it was used as a hotel, a bath and an administrative building.


This is all that now remains of the grand arch the Romans built. It was made of granite imported from Italy and reportedly stood almost 25 meters tall. It was probably torn down and put into the last, massive, defensive walls which now borders the English Heritage area, but which probably was much smaller than the actual settlement. It must have been a grand sight. Sic transit gloria mundi.


Oven? Furnace? Random hole in the wall?


It was an incredible day to be out and about - temps in the mid to lower 20s (70s F), nary a cloud in the sky, slight breeze. Ahhh!

Canterbury

My first diary from ENGERLAND! Wheeee! I landed Tuesday at Gatwick and first spent a very tiresome 15-20 mins dragging my luggage around to find the fuckin car rental area. I then spent a good 15-20 mins in the parking lot of the rental company, acquainting myself with the vehicle, freaking out over left hand driving and nearly, but only nearly smashing my newly bought GPS in pure hatred. I finally got the fucker to work when I found out that the button that for all intents and purposes looked like a "back" button was the one that actually initated a new route. Gaaah.

I spent the night uneventfully in the small town of Crawley, south of Gatwick. Next morning I drove up to Canterbury, and although the route is reasonably straightforward, I was beginning to like my GPS. When you're all alone in the world (sniffle, sniffle) any human voice is welcome, and a real one is progress compared to the ones inside my head. For one, it tends not to scream for blood so much.

Canterbury is a very nice place. Quaint, cozy - just the right mix of touristy and cultural. Lots of narrow streets and alleys, pedestrian areas, museums, tons of pubs; some ancient and some doing their best to look it. Street artists, people in costumes doing advertizing, lots of tourists about - and bar a handful of Krauts, the vast majority were British. It was wonderful to see that just a short hour from the bustling internationalism of London was this essentially English city, where English people were going about their English business in an English way. Ah lub, lub, lub 'em.

I visited two museums in town; the city museum and the Roman Museum. The city museum had some interesting stuff about Canterbury's various phases, from the first Roman forts till the present day. The Roman museum had some interesting mosaics (the whole area was excavated after the Blitz bombing laid bare the ancient ruins) and it illustrated wonderfully how civilized Britain became at the time - and how far and how horribly that civilization fell during the Dark Ages. Sigh.

Anyways, here are some pics - you can find the rest of 'em here.

A small version of ancient Canterbury castle, which is now just a ruin.


Yep, just a ruin.


I was too cheap to spend the £9 to get in, so you'll have to settle for a picture of the rooftop of the famous cathedral. Why people pay good money to see this symbol of ancient idiocy, where the leader (called "Archbishop") of the English department of the largest, organized, criminal organization in the world (the Catholic church) rightly got his head smashed in is beyond me. Thomas fuckin' Becket wasn't even a priest and barely read Latin when he was made top dog.


The "science" of making faces based on skulls is ridiculously subjective, but it was still interesting to see these two romano-britons, buried sometime after the empire had retreated from England.


A section of the museum devoted to more recent stuff.


I believe this was an earlier, failed version of "Wings"?


At the Roman museum I was hounded by school classes (think twenty pluss lil bastards screaming at the top of their lungs), but still managed to get in a couple of shots... this stone is all that remains of a ventilation shaft that led hot air to the baths in Roman times. Baths were an important part of social life back then, but due to its more... ahem, dirty connotations, it fell into disfavor during the Dark Ages. Oh yes, Christianity has a lot to answer for. Did you know that the famous Francis of Assisi, he who could "talk to the animals", bragged of never washing?


Tombstones often tell interesting stories. I liked the inscription on this one: "May the earth lie lightly on thee".


Not sure if this is an old market cross. Tons of people about, outdoor cafes, great weather, etc, etc.


More of the cathedral:


Heh.


Some buildings that, despite their advanced years are still standing. Or at least haven't fallen down yet.






Because, when I think about Thailand the first thing that comes to mind is not their wonderful, spicy, tasty, yummy food... but their sense of FASHION. Me love your accessories long time, baby.


At least they have the honesty to ADMIT they're primitive.


Call me a stickler for tradition, but I think maybe they should rotate them crosses 180 degrees...


Oh, the willpower it took not to go in there and buy one of everything.


When I saw these two establishments side by side my brain couldn't quite decide whether this was a match made in heaven or in hell.