Exploring the Seven Sisters and Dover

Today we visited the Seven Sisters, and traveled to Dover to explore Dover Castle and The White Cliffs of Dover.

We started our day with breakfast at our hotel, before getting quickly on the road. Our first stop was the Seven Sisters and Birling Gap, which was an expansive line of seven pure white chalk cliff faces. We walked along the tops and base of the cliffs, and were impressed by the power of the ocean waves at the base. Interestingly, we saw pictures of these cliffs over the past few decades and the amount of erosion that has occurred was incredible. The beach itself is in a drastically different position from when the first pictures were taken!

Next we drove to Dover, stopping first at Dover Castle. Dover Castle was ancient, having been built in the 1100’s. We climbed to the top for great views of the city, before exploring the fortifications added in later wars. An entire portion of the castle was built out with gun ports and cannon ports, with a massive tunnel system running throughout. Next we headed to the most modern fortifications which were from World War 2, heading into a tunnel system carved into the actual cliff face of the White Cliffs of Dover. This was England’s front line once the Allies lost Dunkirk and retreated to England, and it was incredibly cool to see and explore. The tunnels from the World War 2 fortification were massive, and apparently covered over 4 miles!

After getting our fill of the castle we headed to the cliffs themselves, walking along their ridges and looking over the edge at the ocean below. The cliffs were beautiful, and HUGE! One really interesting thing we noticed were the craters that dotted the cliffs, relics from the bombings that occurred when the Germans attacked England as World War 2 progressed.

Once we’d had our fill of the cliffs we headed to dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant, and then we drove to Gatwick which is our base of operations the next two days as we prepare to head to Iceland.Okumaya devam et