If you’re looking for a jam packed sightseeing day away from London, then why not consider the 2 for
1 of Canterbury and Dover? Resting in the South East of England, we start with the beautifully
compact city of Canterbury. Here, we’ll discover why it became the destination for a medieval
pilgrimage, made famous by the Canterbury Tales. Next we’ll be making our way to the immersive
Dover Castle. Known as the Key to England, this fortress played a crucial defensive role
for almost a millennium. We’ll explore this palace from its heyday, and experience the
4 mile stretch of underground tunnels, built to aid the mass evacuation from Dunkirk. Finally we
end our day trip with a stroll along the White Cliffs of Dover, with its famous chalk facade.
To round off, we return back to the capital, for this stunning dinner cruise. Now, being on a boat
in London is the only time it’s acceptable to wave to a stranger, without being punched in the
face. So with all that, we do hope you’ll join us through our fun packed weekend.
Both these excursions were booked through Get Your Guide, the one stop shop
for booking thousands of tours and tickets around the world, and are your sponsor for todays trip.
This is Suitcase Monkey being an English tourist in England.
With a 90 minute drive along everyones favourite road, the M2, we arrive into Canterbury. Notable
for its location holding the first cathedral in England, it is Canterbury Cathedral that rises
over everything, but more on that later. The main high street starts similar to most other
English cities, with an Ask Italian here and a Franco Manca there, but soon opens up into
numerous side streets, all bubbling with independent shops, pubs, museums and cafes.
Due to its compact size it’s easy to explore the city centre over just a couple of hours.
The major attraction within Canterbury is easily its Cathedral, one of the oldest and most famous
in England and the seat to the Archbishop. It was 1170 though, when Thomas Becket,
the Archbishop of the time, was actually murdered in this very space, following a disagreement with
the King. Sources indicate that it was something to do with the correct colour of this dress.
Following Beckets murder, the cathedral became the most important pilgrimage site in England,
popularised by The Canterbury Tales from Geoffrey Chaucer. No matter what
your religious beliefs may be, walking around this architectural wonder is a sight to behold.
We ended our time here at this cafe, catching our breath for the next part of the trip. You could
certainly spend a whole afternoon in Canterbury and I’ll cover alternative self arranged routes
at the end of the video. But for now, we were back on the road, making our way to Dover Castle.
As mentioned at the start of this video, we booked everything you see here through todays sponsor,
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and then access all your tickets digitally. After just 5 minutes of browsing, we found
all these tours and tickets for London, some of which we’ve already covered on the channel.
Your booked activities all then provide loads of useful info, including linked live directions
to your meeting point or attraction. You’ll also have the benefit of 24/7 customer support and free
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Dover Castle is known as the key to England, so called after the centuries of failed invasions.
It sits, fortified, high on the clifftop. France is clearly visible from just 30 miles
across the water, the closest occupied territory during the Second World War.
Depending on who you speak with, it’s the largest castle in England, and has adapted over its 800
years to suit the needs of everyone from soldiers to kings. The main Great Tower was frequently
used as royal apartments, and I think you’ll agree, a trip to Ikea wouldn’t have gone amiss.
As an army base, Dover Castle played an important role during both World Wars. Most interestingly
for us, the unexpected highlight of this trip were these two tunnels. Operation Dynamo tells
the story of how the tunnels became the nerve centre for controlling the mass evacuation of
340,000 troops from Dunkirk. The tunnel we experienced was the adjacent Underground Hospital.
This is a sensory walking experience with hidden speakers blasting out overheard conversations,
sirens and operating table procedures. Coupled with flashing lights, smells and period music,
it did a great job of recreating what life here must have felt like.
After capturing some of this skilful drone footage, it was time to leave. The perfect
way to round off our day trip was with a visit to The White Cliffs of Dover.
Similar to how the Statue of Liberty would welcome visitors to New York,
these white cliffs also represent home or escape. Rising to 350 feet, their striking appearance are
down to the composition of chalk, and accentuated by black flint. If you have 2 to 3 hours you could
walk further along the cliff edge and reach the worlds first electric light house. Again,
I’ll discuss the pros and cons of visiting outside an organised trip, at the end of the video.
When Get Your Guide originally contacted me, they gave us an open book as to which trips we wanted
to share. And my first pick was an evening dinner cruise along the Thames. I actually did this very
cruise 15 years ago and loved it, but it was a new experience for Chiaki. Prices start at £99 per
person and that gives you a 3 course meal, half a bottle of wine, half a bottle of mineral water,
some live music and 3 whole hours on the water. We even had Amuse bouche, and yes it was amusing.
This specific boat is the nicest one on the Thames, and again I’ll
leave a link in the description if you want to check out availability.
If you’re looking for a truly special evening to spoil yourselves, I’d really recommend
checking this out, especially when you have the chance to experience this gorgeous sunset.
So if this video has whetted your appetite for visiting Canterbury or Dover,
I think there are 3 different ways you could visit and I wanted to go through them each.
The first is to book everything yourselves. This would be a train from London into
Canterbury and then a public bus to Dover Castle with a bit more walking in-between.
The main benefit of this, is that you can obviously split your time however you wanted.
You would gain some time with the train from London but then overall lose time getting
the return public bus to Dover Castle and back. So, although it would be a longer day,
I’d suggest getting a really early and then late train to make up the time. But
the price would work out a little cheaper at around £89pp for transport and all entry fees.
The other self planed method, is to do everything as above, but also staying for
1 night in Canterbury. I’ll link a hotel in the description that I think is in a good location
but this ultimately would allow for a much more leisurely pace in Canterbury,
visiting more sites than we did.
Then, waking up in the morning for a round trip to Dover Castle,
visiting the second underground tunnel which we didn’t have the time for, doing the full walk
along the White Cliffs and then returning back to Canterbury and onto London. This is
obviously the most expensive option but allows for the full experience if time is on your side.
The third option is the Get Your Guide trip we took in this video.
This only costs £15 more than doing it yourself and there’s the added value of a tour guide to
take you through the history. One thing we also liked is that once you are at the destination,
you were free to leave the group, so it didn’t feel as cattle market as some of these tours
can. There’s also the convenience of the private coach that limits walking and public transfers,
specifically in the Dover Castle/White Cliffs area. You also get the added bonus of visiting
the popular British experience that is the motorway service station.
Thank you to Get Your Guide for making this entire video possible,
I’d only partner up with them if I thought their app and website were a useful tool.
If you click my link in the description and then book anything from it, you’ll be supporting this
channel at no extra cost to yourselves which helps us continue making travel vlogs for the future.
The next video will be out very soon and it’s our monster trip to Jordan, so please keep us
in mind for when that one drops. So until the next video, thanks for watching Suitcase Monkey.