The Last Voyage (Dover, England Part 5)

 After departing Le Havre, France on May 26th (See Part 4), our transatlantic cruise on the MS Zuiderdam was nearing it's end.  We sailed over night to Dover, England.  I got up quite early to see the White Cliffs of Dover as we approached the English coast .

The White Cliffs of Dover at Dawn

The Dover Lighthouse

Entering the Dover Harbor

The Dover Castle on the hill

This was another port shuttle disaster.  Ron parked himself in the Crows Nest while I went ashore.  There was no shuttle.  I was told it had left an hour before and had not returned.  All the for-hire cars wanted long trips only and none would take me to Dover.  I was told it was a 15 minute walk into town, so map in hand, I began to walk to Dover.  The walk through the port to town took 30 minutes and was approximately 3 miles. Once I got to the Ring Road, I saw the problem.  Traffic was bumper-to-bumper and totally stopped.  It was Saturday of a 3 day weekend (Bank Holiday Monday) and holiday visitors were on their way to the seaside.  That is why the shuttle never returned. 

 

I got into town and visited the Dover Museum which was free and very interesting.  It had a Bronze Age boat that was 3,500 years old as it's star attraction.  It had been dug up and re-assembled to the archaeologists delight.  There was plenty of history in the Dover Museum documenting the Vikings and Romans and Saxons and Normans occupation of the area.

I found the history of the town as a summer beach retreat and the numerous English Channel swims very interesting. 

I did some serious shopping for souvenirs here. There were buskers, many vintage and second hand sellers and a circle dance of Medieval-costumed girls with flower crowns as the streets began to fill in the afternoon but I had to return to the ship (another 3 miles).

 We set sail late as there was an excursion bus with 37 passengers that had not yet returned at All-Aboard.  Here are pictures of the Cliffs and Harbor as we left about 6PM

 

 The next day would bring our 16 day cruise to it's final destination - Rotterdam, The Netherlands.  We had already made the decision early in the cruise to not go on to London for 7 more days.  We had cancelled the hotel and excursions we had planned.  We changed our departure from Heathrow Airport (London) to Schiphol (Amsterdam) for May 30th.  The trip had been a wonderful vacation for us, but was very exhausting.  We would have two days to spend in Rotterdam before the awful flight home.  See Part 6 to see our Rotterdam experience.