Thursday - travel to Dover

We had made arrangements to stay the night before our cruise in Dover, so Thursday, we checked out of the Hampton by Hilton Old Street hotel, got a black cab (which actually was white) to St Pancras International Station, and caught a Southeastern train to Dover.

We got to the station early, and were watching the board to see when the platform for our train was indicated -- it was ultimately going to Sandwich, but we took it just to Dover Priory.

On the train - we saw some of southeastern England as we traveled.

The train was quite full for much of the journey, but towards Dover, everyone could get seats (we had successfully gotten seats when we first got on, but moved to seats where we had a window after other people got off).

Along the southern coast, we saw some of the white cliffs that are part of the area around Dover.

A view of the Southeastern network

Our train at Dover Priory station

We got to our hotel -- it is pretty small, but sufficient for our needs (the bed is right up against the wall on the other side).

With all the walking we have been doing, Carl had gotten a blister on the bottom of his foot, so at the train station, he found "Multi-Purpose Blister Plasters" (plaster = bandaid).

After getting settled into our hotel room, we walked down to the main street to get a late lunch... 

We stopped at Biggin's Fish & Chips...

... we shared a large order of fish and chips and it was very good!

We walked further down the shopping area...

...before returning back by the shop where we had gotten fish and chips. While we were eating inside, there was a sea gull outside the window encouraging us to bring food out to him. We did not, but we threw away our leftovers in the trash can out on the patio -- you can see the sea gull on the ground watching the trash can where our box was placed...

... as we walked by, the sea gull was making an effort to get the box open and access to our leftovers!

We walked on back to our hotel, Park Inn Palace. It is very adequate, though nothing fancy.

We are looking forward to getting started on our cruise on Friday!