We had been warned by one of the passengers in the back seat of our car that Dover wasn’t that flash. This was based on the advice of the bus driver he had when travelling to France to go snow boarding and we were very quick to dismiss this as information from some one who was ill informed but…as one of our tour guides did say to us during one of the tours we did at Dover Castle it has been a long time since any money has been spent in this town and it shows.

After a lengthy trip from Leicester to Dover – it took nearly 5 hours to get here and we were expecting 3 1/2, we arrived with little real sightseeing time left in the day and so after checking into the West Bank Guest House, we made a trip down town to check out places to eat, and do a drive by past the castle.

This drive proved to be pretty good recon for the next day, so we planned how we would manage to squeeze in three castles, noting that everyone had told us that we needed a full day at Dover castle.

Waking up to a rainy morning in Dover we had quick breakfast and headed to Walmer Castle and Gardens. The castle is quite magnificent, and intact and fun fact the home of the original Wellington Boot. The audio guide is based on the refurbishment of the castle, rather than its importance as a military command post which is a little disappointing, in fact I stopped listening a couple of stations in, as I was distracted by the beautiful gardens outside so no doubt missed a lot if important titbits of information.

The Queen Mothers garden was particularly beautiful and it was wonderful walking through them. It was very easy to imagine myself watching a game of croquet and having a nice cup of tea and scone in the gardens.

A short distance away and another castle that is right by the side of the road – the really interesting and imposing Deal castle. This castle was built as a stronghold fortress defence for Henry VIII, much like Walmers. The audio guide is great for this castle, giving you a real sense of the castles purpose and history. For me it also highlighted the hardships of the men who lived in these enclosed spaces, totally surrounded by filth, noise and no doubt despair.

Like many of the monuments in this area the castle sustained damage in World War II (Dover was the most bombed area of the UK) but the local historians have done a great job of restoring the castle. The castle is one of three which are described as having a significant role in protecting England in the 16th century from those dreadful Catholics who were a bit cross about the break from the Church and that nasty divorce (you can see France from the castle). This castle and Walmer Castle was financed from the proceeds of closing down all the monasteries that we visited earlier in our trip.

It is a really impressive visit and we just stumbled across it almost be accident – there are 145 gun-ports with wonderful tunnels to explore and a three-storeyed circular citadel, or tower, with six semicircular, slightly lower towers from its external face. For me it was astonishing that this place was
built in less than 2 years.

After seeing these two very different castles, we moved onto Dover’s crowning glory.. Dover Castle, and wow!

As it mentioned earlier coming to Dover was as a result of a conversation we had in Helmsley with the tourist information man, who said that Dover Castle was a great place to visit and so based on that we made the journey.
Sadly I have to admit that I knew very little about this castle before we arrived, which is extraordinary given its history. Dover Castle has the longest recorded history of all castles in Britain.

Dover Castle was around in the prehistoric Iron Age, and the Romans built a lighthouse there in the first century AD, with it being resettled in the tenth century or earlier by the Anglo-Saxons – when they built a fortified town and the church is still standing – amazing!

Most of the castle we visited dates from a century after the Norman Conquest apparently just after the Battle of Hastings (1066) William the Conqueror spent eight days at Dover strengthening the site. The amazing keep was built in the 1180’s with the gate houses and towers built in the early 1200’s. Then the place feel into disrepair but was remodelled in the 1740’s ( yes still before Captain Cook arrived ) and was used as a military base.

So apart from its age and it’s size what is so cool about this place…well underground tunnels. There are a maze of them under the castle itself which were carved in Medieval times, which are really cool but nothing compared to the ones cut into those famous white cliffs in Napoleonic times, and you can go down into two stages of them. These same tunnels were used during the World War II as a bomb proof base for military command in the area, there was a hospital set up which was used and one of the exhibitions simulates what it would have been like to actually be down in the tunnels during the bombing of Dover. I can’t recall how far underground we were but there were 76 steps to get back up to the surface.

The other tunnel experience is related to Operation Dynamo – Rescue from Dunkirk – again I was embarrassingly oblivious to this. In 1940 the British Army and it’s French and Belgian allies were trapped in Dunkirk fighting for their lives against the Germans. Vice Admiral Ramsay was in the bomb proof headquarters in the White Cliff tunnels and knew that more than 300,000 soldiers needed rescuing. As part of a group of 30 we travelled 26 metres underground and were part of an interactive display, it was great.

With both tours I was terrified in the beginning and well out of my comfort zone, but I soon forgot where I was (similar to last years catacombs), both were fantastic and very different experiences and worth the queueing.

The tunnels have only relatively recently been transformed to the way they are today , as they were being used up until the 1980’s as a possible site for the government to convene in the event if a nuclear war, seems to Hollywood to be true – but I’m pretty sure it is.