Palenque's Day Trips from London

Oh i meant to encourage anyone to add comments on these destinations if you've done them - good or bad!

PalQ, you might enjoy reading about my funny trip to Hever last fall titled Latest London Adventure. We initially couldn't find the castle!

Yes i would - i'll search under your name unless you have more details on where i can find it.
I have a not-so-pleasant walk back from the castle - i had no problem finding it but coming back to the train station i missed a turn and was trekking along at a good clip until about a mile later i realized that i hadn't passed this scenery on my way out - and it was a busy road with no shoulder - like those in rural Britain with hedges on each side and cars roaring over hills - was glad to get back to the quiet train station. So i had the opposite problem, could find the castle but not my way back!

PalQ,
I agree that Hever Castle is a wonderful day trip from London.
Parts of the castle date from the late 1200's.
Its most famous inhabitant was Anne Boleyn; Hever was her childhood home. The castle has another connection with Henry VIII as it was once owned by Anne of Cleves.


William Waldorf Astor is the owner who commissioned the beautiful Italian sculpture gardens.
There are also rose gardens, rhododendron gardens, and many water features.

If you go to Hever Castle, be sure to see the collection of miniature houses. These depict life from Medieval times through the early 1900's.


There are two train stations in the vicinity of Hever Castle:" Hever Station " and "Edenbridge Town Station."

" Hever Station" is the one with no taxis. The first time I visited Hever Castle , about 6 years ago, I was with my sister . We arrived via Hever Station. We weren't sure how far away the castle was and we could find no one at the station to ask directions. We walked a few blocks to a main road and found a pub. We used the phone at the pub and called a taxi to take us to the castle, then we arranged for the same taxi to pick us up at an appointed time and return us to the station.
It was the taxi driver who told us the other train station ,"Edenbridge Town", sometimes has taxis waiting.

There is a small rural church just outside the entrance the the castle grounds. ( My sister and I had time to explore here while we waited for our taxi to return. ) We found out that Anne Boleyn's father is buried there.

I love the idea of describing Hatfield as "quaint". There IS a small historic bit - massively overwhelmed by some of the naffest new building even SE England can offer.

Incidentally, the Hatfield rail crash killed precisely four people. In the year it happened (2000), dozens of unpublicised road crashes in Britain killed just as many, and government-owned public transport crashes elsewhere in Europe (eg the Concorde crash in Paris) killed many times more. Hatfield is a monument to politically-motivated over-reaction - fuelled, esssentially, by Tony B. Liar's determination to badmouth the previous government.

To anyone interested in history, though, Hatfield is best known for being where Elizabeth 1 - still the greatest ruler of any English-speaking country ever (if it wasn't for her we'd all be speaking Spanish, in the highly unlikely eventuality of our forefathers surviving the Inquisition) - was living when she finally acceded to the throne. Well worth braving the horrors of Hatfield New Town (or of the mall around TK Maxx) to see.

Flanneruk: Guess i thought many died because it was such a big deal in the press - i was there when it happened - i think many more people get electricuted on third rails and run over by trains every year too. Guess it was a good reason to bash rail privitization, which i'm sure you're dead against given your Tory bent it seems - the Iron Lady let the rails deteriorate such that the rail infrastructure was in terrible shape. Anyway the hamlet surrounding the castle - the old town built with the castle i presume that i walked through from the castle to get to the train station is quaint - old brick and stone buildings but this is not i guess what hatfield conjers up in a Brit mind - i didn't notice the new town at all or don't remember it. In any case an outstanding day trip that is really quite close to London.

Royal Tunbridge Wells:
Another great day trip goes to Royal Tunbridge Wells, about an hour by train from southeast of London. This once swank watering hole of the rich and famous gained fame due to the supposed miraculous healing powers of its spring's waters. It would become a magnet for high society. Today many of the grandiose buildings built to cater to them are still there, as is the spring, surprisingly diminuitive in its present state under an iron grill, spitting out rivulets of water. But the town has a nice architectural cohesion in its stone buildings, lots of parks and a thriving newer commercial section, which is a sweet regional town that is hopping on Saturdays. Head for the local tourist information centre and pick up their town walking tour to be filled in on the town's intriguing history.

PalQ, I topped my report for you in case you had trouble finding it.

Carolyn: thanks for your very amusing and extremely well written Hever story: it reminded me of what my brother once said to someone at St. Michael's Mount in Cornwall - a mini Mt St Michel but one which is really an island at high tide and part of the mainland at low tide - he and his wife had just come back at low tide, walking, and someone asked him if it would be OK to walk over and walk back - for some reason, based on something he thought was true, he assured them they would have plenty of time to do so. A half-hour later they noticed the causeway was submerged and the folks would be stranded on the island - though i guess there is a boat service of some type. Anyone what an amusing story of the Connecticut Yankee. thanks
Caroline's Hever story copied from her London Adventure report:
And then there was the day we went to Hever. The ticket agent at Victoria Station told us there was trouble on the line and we should change trains at East Clapham. We dutifully got off and asked the agent which train to get for Hever, and he pointed to the one we had just got off of and was then moving on, saying we should change at Oxted for Hever which was what the man at the departure point at Victoria had said. So we waited half an hour for another train to Oxted and then another half an hour for the train to Hever.

The station at Hever is not manned but does have a painted board with directions for walking the mile to the castle. However, a U.S. couple from CT got off, he waving a map and saying this way to the castle. I should have known better than to go with them because she was wearing jeans and (gasp) white walking shoes, but we followed along a pretty deserted road, eating wild blackberries and avoiding horse droppings along the way, while walking up a long and fairly steep hill. Lisa and I fell somewhat behind after more than enough time to have walked a mile and then saw the couple coming back with the news that they had seen a sign pointing to the castle back the way we had come.

Let me say here that Hever is a VERY small place with the castle, a church, the Henry VIII pub and a few houses scattered along those quiet roads. We had passed another pub on that wrong road, so the CT guy went in, asked directions, and was told to take the footpath just beside the pub which would take us directly to the castle.

Okay, we started out on a very narrow path lined with brambles and littered with sheep droppings, and then we came to the first stile. It was pretty rickety but climbable, so over we went only to find ourselves in a farmer?s field complete with cow droppings and a sign saying it was private property but could be used to connect to the footpath further along.

Did that, climbed another stile, back onto the footpath which then came to a dead end with stiles to the right and to the left. The Connecticut Yankee wanted to go right, which was back in the wrong direction from which we had just come. At that point even his wife protested, so we climbed left and saw more footpath that at last led to the village.

We did enjoy seeing the castle, learning some history, and seeing the beautiful Italian gardens and the rose garden that still had lots of bloom. It was a brisk sunny day for all our walking but did start to rain while we were in the gardens. When we turned to look back just as the rain ended, there was a beautiful rainbow just across the river that lies beyond the arches at the end of the gardens.

We got back to the train station following the correct road, got the train back to Oxted, changed trains properly, and then found that the trouble on the line was on the return portion to London. Instead of getting back to Victoria, we ended up at London Bridge station, got on a District Line tube?headed in the wrong direction! Well, that was pretty easy to correct, got off, changed sides, got on again, and didn?t get caught outside our tube pass zone.

The moral of this story is don?t follow strangers equipped with internet maps and look for the rainbows

Dover
Not many folks go to Dover anymore that the Eurotunnel whisks folks under the English Channel but Dover can be a great day trip from London. Attractions: This is still a busy port with Hovercraft, car ferries and freight boats coming and going in and out of the long jetty - you can see France across the way - at least the white cliffs in the Calais area just over 20 miles away as the seagulls fly. Dover was once the gateway to the Continent as boat, before planes was the only way in or out. (I always think of the famous headline when fog shut down Channel boat travel long ago and some paper had headlines: Channel ports closed by fog - Continent isolated!

Dover Castle - the castle of your dreams regally broodingly perched high above the port with superlative views over the Channel. From the Eastern Docks, the busiest of three Dover docks, footpaths go right up along the crumbling edge of the famous White Cliffs of Dover - up top there is a warren of tunnels burrowed out for military reasons over the years that you can (or could as of several years ago) explore if you had your own torch. There are other lesser attractions in Dover, including a Roman Museum but you come here for the views, the cliffs and the castle. Trains take about 1.5 hours from London - Canterbury could be included on a day trip as some rail routes go thru there.

1066 Country & Hastings
A great day trip from London goes by rail 1.5 hours to Battle, where a short walk from the station is Battle Abbey, overlooking the site of the major battle in 1066 between William the Conqueror and Saxon King Harold - a bloody battle ending in the Normans taking control on England. You can walk around the battlefield on paths with interpretative signs, tour the abbey remains and see video presentations about the battle. Battle is a sweet little town. A few minutes down the rail line is Hastings, a neat port town with several interesting aspects to it. On the London Charing X-Battle-Hastings rail line is Royal Tunbridge Wells, mentioned in one of my above posts.