You really need a car to do sight-seeing, if you’re in a hurry. I bought an Explorer ticket for unlimited travel at 5.50 GBP and I got the 9am bus from Dover to Ramsgate, and then hopped on a Loop bus to get to Broadstairs. I arrived at 11:30am! I could’ve got there quicker with a train and bus connection (at twice the price) or taken the anti-clockwise loop bus, if I’d known about it…ah well. The weather was beautiful all day today, which was great after yesterday. But yet, I only took 88 photos today – lowest photo count of the trip (besides the travelling days when I took none or only very few like the day I arrived in Dover.)
Broadstairs was nice. I wandered down to the beach and Viking Bay. There’s lots of ‘chalets’ lining the cliff surrounding the beach. There were even people sunbathing outside their chalets. I was curious about them so I walked along one of the ‘streets’ with the chalets on them and looked in. They’re like 180cm tall, wide and deep cubes. People have their stuff stored there for their day at the beach. There was a couple having breakfast outside their chalet. Looked like a fun thing to do! I bet they’re crowded with people in summer! There were also some more ‘free-range’ chalets that were more colourful and people had even painted pictures on some of them:
Of course there’s all sorts of hotels and cafes by the beach too, and I stopped for a coffee at one and sat in the sun myself:
I was vaguely interested in the Dickens House museum, but it wasn’t opening til 2pm and I had an appointment at 1.30pm and wanted to continue on. I wandered around Broadstairs a bit more, taking photos:
This place made me giggle:
I had some fish and chips for lunch at a little place that had a sign saying they won an award for their fish last year. It was rather good and only cost 6 GBP. Then it was time for my appointment. I was finally getting my haircut! It’d been driving me nuts for a couple of weeks and this morning I’d looked like a hedgehog because of washing it last night and not having a hair dryer.
After my 12 GBP special haircut, I got on the bus to Margate to check out the Shell Grotto and the Turner Gallery. Of course I had to check out the beach first. Not the most attractive one:
Next was the Tudor House, which isn’t open to the public:
And the Shell Grotto, with its room and tunnels covered in shells in intricate mosaic patterns. They reckon they don’t know who made them or how old they are. I reckon it’s gotta be gothic because of the pointed arches of the doorways and tunnels, myself:
I headed back to the bus, winding my way through the backstreets (because that’s where the grotto was):
The local mosque!:
I caught the bus to Canterbury and another from Canterbury back to Dover. That was a lot quicker than my trip up there had been!
When I got back to Dover, the light was so beautiful on the castle, I just had to take some more photos:
