Calais

So Matt, Emily, and I were planning on going to Dover to see the famous White Cliffs. As the trip got closer, all the British people who heard about the trip told us it was pretty boring there. My friend Jenna then told me it was possible to get on the ferry to Calais from Dover and come back within a day. We changed our bus tickets to the last bus back to London, which was a shame because I had paid 1 pound each way for round trip bus tickets from National Express.
Anyway, our bus was scheduled to arrive at Dover at noon and the next two ferries out were at 12:40 and 1:35. Our bus did not arrive until 12:40, so we figured we would get on the 1:35 ferry. However, SeaFrance doesn't let foot passengers get on without checking in 60 minutes in advance even though people driving a car onto the ferry need to be there 30 minutes in advance. Basically, we couldn't leave until 3:00 and our bus left Dover back to London at 8:30. We decided to get tickets anyway and enjoy the ride to Calais and back even though we'd have very little time there.





As we were getting on the boat we decide to look for a place to stay overnight in France, despite the fact that we had only packed for a short day trip to Dover. Considering that the three of us all really like to plan this kind of thing in advance, this seemed especially spontaneous. Good fun.
Here we are arriving in France.





After we arrived, we hopped off the boat and walked into town from the ferry station. The first thing we did is make sure we had a place to sleep so we didn't get stranded in France without a bed to sleep in. We walked around and found a Holiday Inn and were able to get a room immediately. We relaxed for a few minutes then set out to find a meal. I'd packed a lunch, but Matt and Emily hadn't really eaten since breakfast and it was about 5 by this point. We went into the first restaurant we found and, of course, the food was incredible. I had a bowl of onion soup and then a bowl of some sort of pasta with some sort of cream sauce. I couldn't say exactly what was in it, but it was full of amazingly tasty veggies and general decadent goodness.
Matt and Emily each got the beef stew and they said it was heavenly.





After eating, we went to the hotel and laid down to watch the tennis for a little while. We felt bad, since we were in a different country, but we were exhausted and in a food coma. After the third set, we dragged ourselves up to look around the town. There wasn't that much around the town, but we saw a few things. There was the dock area with a memorial to drowned sailors going back 200 years. There was also the tower that's been bombed and attacked by basically everyone ever including the English, Germans, Americans, and Canadians. Hilarious. Still standing though.





The next day we got up and had a breakfast right at the Holiday Inn. The description made it sound so good, but it really wasn't that great because they didn't have everything they said they would and through some misunderstanding or other, we thought the breakfast was included, or at least cheap. However, it was 13.50 Euros each. That, in addition to the fact that it cost an extra 15 euros to have a third person stay in a room with two double beds, made the hotel cost more than we wanted it to. Oh well. When we went out, we stumbled across a market they'd set up in the town square. They were selling fresh produce, meat, seafood, flowers, clothes, beds, purses, and whatever else. It was really cool, and was gone a few hours later when we came back into town. Odd. Here's a van that was selling horse meat.




Anyway, we set off to the beach from there. It was absolutely great - there was not a soul on the beach. It was a bit cloudy and very, very windy but the sun started to come out. Certainly very windy and cold, but it was great to be on the beach. It was the widest beach I'd ever been on. The distance between the dunes and the water was incredible and totally flat. The tide has to come in and out so rapidly. Near the beach, there was this layer of sand being blown across the beach by the wind. It looked very cool. We, of course, didn't have any sun lotion, as we didn't even plan this trip. We got roasted, but didn't notice until later. Oh well.






After we spent a while there, we went and walked around looking for a place to eat and get a bottle of wine. It took a while, but we found a place to eat on the town square in front of that bombed-out tower and did exactly that. The food was incredible, and the atmosphere was even better. Awesome. By this time, the weather had cleared up and it was absolutely beautiful out.




We then walked to the top of this light house. It's so great that it cleared up, because the view was amazing!




I took a bunch of pictures and used a program to stitch together a panorama. It's hosted on Facebook, so it made it really small. You can sort of see it though.

After that, we walked along the road casually and got back to the ferry station to get on the boat back to Dover.



Here's a few shots of the ride back:



We eventually got to Dover. We had to grab food at a BP gas station since basically everything in Dover was closed. Not a great dinner, but we caught sight of Dover Castle on the way.

Also, it's worth nothing that people were much more rude in Britain on this journey than in France. People were so nice in Calais. It was great. Anyway, we got the bus back to London at 8:30 that night and got home really late.