Float Days 27-28 (Cliffs of Dover / Rye; return to Rotterdam for disembarkation)

    

   Day 27:  The float ended with a port-stop at Dover, and a bus-trip for a couple hours in Rye.  Rye used to be a port city, but is now a few miles inland.
    Rye is one of those super-English historic towns (even for England) that made its reputation during the Medieval era as a base for smuggling and privateering (to avoid the King's tariffs).  One of the first stops we walked to was the Mermaid Inn, where the smugglers spent their non-work hours (the secret passages for quick escapes have since been sealed).  The doorways between rooms are low (people used to be shorter).  I figured this out with my head.
    Went to their private room.  They were setting up for a big event - The Dodo Society - a group of folks who were retiring.  Some very nice decorations and cakes.  Rumor was that the Archbishop of Canterbury was going to be attending the party.
    Ate at Simon the Pieman (oldest tearoom in Rye).  Walked the city.  Took some photos.  Heard that Paul McCartney lives here.
    Took the bus back.
    Then walked the Cliffs of Dover.  More pictures.  Beautiful.

    Day 28: The ship returned to Rotterdam and we disembarked.  Took the train to the airport in Amsterdam.  Now waiting for our flight to Dublin to visit friends and see the sights.

    Photos:

    Day 27:  Dover

    Some more functioning old-style telephone booths as we left the Dover Port:

    In Rye - first thing I saw was the electrical distribution system.

The First House on Mermaid Street:

    And the Mermaid Inn:

    Outside the Mermaid Inn, A Smuggler's Song, by Rudyard Kipling (who spent time in Rye):

    The house with two front doors:

    Very archetypal English:

    Of course, some wildflowers.  Purpletop Vervain with a Buff-tailed Bumblebee.

    A Cuckoo Wasp (saw one of these in Spain) - they lay their eggs in other insect nests, and theirs hatch first and eat all the other larvae.

    Inside the church:

    At Simon the Pieman, though I thought Simple Simon only met the Pieman, not that he was a Pieman himself:

    Across the street, the town crier was announcing marriages, as they were being completed at City Hall:

    Rye was heavily engaged in WW2.  Germany (though it never came to fruition) was planning to land near Rye (because they could not attack at Dover due to the cliffs).  There was a tribute to the effort at the top of the town put up by the 'gun club' - a different definition than in the US.

    Hiked around the top of the Cliffs of Dover.

    The white cliffs are made up of chalk, with some white-encrusted nodules of flint.  Both are visible below.

    Chalk eroding into the ocean:

    A Red-tailed Bumblebee:

    A view down the other way along the cliffs, with the Dover Castle (one of the oldest [>1000 years] and best-preserved castles in England).  Supposedly, Winston Churchill conducted a lot his WW2 strategy from the labyrinth of tunnels under the castle.

    A Western Honey Bee on Traveler's Joy flowers:

    And a Yellowjacket on a blackberry:

    As the ship departed for Rotterdam, a last look at the cliffs: