Letter 22 from Europe RV trip

We had no high hopes for the city of Rochester, and were we surprised by it! There was a castle, a cathedral and lots of interesting buildings. One of the things that caught our attention in the cathedral was a plaque commemorating the deaths of English military men killed in campaigns in India and in Khartoum.

The buildings were interesting not only because of their architecture, but because Rochester’s buildings figure heavily in Charles Dickens’ work. He lived near this city as a boy and close to it once he became a major literary figure. Many of the stores bear names from his books, of course, but even more than that, some of the buildings he described in his books are still there. Since Ron is a great fan of Dickens, this turned out to be a great day.

We saw was the mansion, Restoration House, that served as Dickens’ model for the mansion owned by the demented jilted bride, Miss Havisham, in “Great Expectations”. Down the street was the huge house, named Eastgate, that was the model for Westgate House in “The Pickwick Papers”, and also for the Nun’s House in “Edwin Drood”.

The Guildhall Museum had a very nice exhibit of Victorian life and artifacts, and , in a separate wing, it also had a very extensive collection of neolithic and later artifacts, including a 200,000 year old huge flint axe head that one could actually touch.! The edges were still very sharp.

We had a late lunch “at home” and headed for the small market town of Faversham, which we know to be a lovely town with 500 buildings interesting enough to be “listed” as historical. We found the campground without a problem and settled in. It was on a farm with a farm house dating from 1547. That campground had many cherry trees with ripe cherries still on them. You were not supposed to pick any, but we can tell you that they were delicious.

On Friday morning we’d go into town. The proprietor of the campground said that we could park the motor home in town and gave us directions to a lot that she thought could accommodate the RV. But when we did go into town, we found that there was no place where we could put the motorhome while we walked around. That was partly because spaces were too small, but also because it was market day.

We didn’t have a lot of time because we had tickets for a Friday ferry back to France. We simply got back on the road and drove to Canterbury. We followed signs for parking that showed a coach (bus) and a motorhome ikon– and we found that there really was a parking lot where we could park. It was very close to the Cathedral. We’ve been in Canterbury before, so when we saw the cost of touring the Cathedral, we passed. It would have cost nearly $18 for us to walk into the Cathedral! Good thing we saw it in 2003.
Apart from the impressive and very old architecture, this Cathedral also was where Thomas Beckett, then Archbishop of Canterbury, who defied his long-time friend King Henry II, was murdered at prayer by four Knights who may or may not have been ordered to do the dirty deed by Henry himself. The exact spot is identified in the Cathedral.

We walked around and then read the Tourist Office information about Canterbury. There was a Roman museum just a few minutes away from the center of town. We opted for that. The cost was only about two pounds just under $4.00) each, for OAP’s (Old Age Pensioners), and we qualified.

It was very interesting even though we’ve seen lots of the same stuff before. This museum had a couple of tricks up its collective sleeve. First, they have a very good idea, from excavations, of how the town looked in A.D. 150 and how it looked when the year A.D. 300 rolled around. There were excellent illustrations showing how the town had grown and prospered.

Second, many of the artifacts that they found were incorporated into displays showing people in their shops. Mannequins were dressed appropriately, and the craftsmen’s wares were shown. Then we came to what is called “the Roman villa under your feet”.

It turns out that while everyone has known for a very long time that Canterbury was a Roman town, the big impetus to finding the remains of a villa was the bombing of the city in WWII. When repairs were being made, they discovered the villa under the modern buildings that had been destroyed. The town then put a building up over the villa, and that is the main display in the museum.

Finally, the museum used a computer program to show how the house had looked at its beginnings, and how it looked 300 years later when it apparently was abandoned when Canterbury was no longer associated with Rome.

We left after seeing the museum. It seemed to us that if we just showed up at the ticket office at the ferry to Calais early, they might get us onto an earlier sailing. Otherwise we had tickets for a six o’clock ferry which got in an hour and a half later. To make matters worse, English time is one hour behind European time. That meant that we’d be getting in at 8:30 p.m. It is still light then, but finding a campground so late at night would be much more difficult.

There was some difficulty, but the charming man at the check-in counter arranged for us to take the ferry that left at 5 p.m. Now we reached shore at 7:30 p.m. – much better! We decided to try for a campground only 30 minutes away. We got to the town of Ardres at 8:15 – and were turned down at five different campgrounds – all of which were full. We had realized that there might be a problem since July 14 is Bastille Day – France’s biggest holiday – and the beginning of a week-end, but five turn downs seemed like a lot. It was after 9 when we finally got to a suburb of St. Omer and saw a sign that said that the Mayor welcomes you to the municipal campground that can be found at the Café. We drove on, following the signs for what we thought was a long way, and were convinced we’d either missed it or it was closed, when a campsite sign appeared. We had found our safe harbor for the night.