Hi,

Assuming the BBC keeps telling me that the weather will be nice during the weekend, my husband and I are planning to rent a car this weekend and visit Leeds Castle and Dover and then get back to London (where we live). I'm planning to leave on Sat morning and return by Sunday night any advices on:
a) Other places/cities to visit on this route?
b) B&B in Dover?
c) Any other comments?

I'd appreciate any help/comments you could share with me !!!

Cheers,

Juliana.

Canterbury is an obvious mega interest place if you haven't been there. A small town near it, Chilham has a very neat castles and the village around it is sweet too.

At Dover you can actually climb up a footpath to the top of the famous cliffs and see all across the Channel. When i was there some years ago there were actually tunnels and underground bunkers you could walk into - bring a torch!

That sounds cool, palanquebob!!! Thanks for the tips and yes, will bring a torch !!!!

Yanks should bring a flashlight instead of a torch.

I might skip Leeds unless you have time on your way back to London.

I would do Deal/Walmer/Dover castles. All are totally different and only w/i 3 or 4 miles of each other.

Walmer is wonderful, and the gardens are glorious. Deal is all original and really interesting. They will give you a torch for walking through the tunnels. Then the Grand Daddy - Dover Castle, that can take most of a full day by itself.

Leeds has lovely grounds/gardens - but inside it is basically a dump. Not actually horrible, it is nice-ish, but not anywhere near as grand and/or interesting as Hever/Knole/Penshurst/Chartwell

Oh - you don't really need a torch at Dover (though one can always come in handy) The WWII tunnels are all fully lit.

Janisi - it was quite a few years ago that i peeked in some tunnels up there and at that time they were not lit and we didn't know how far they went. There were quite a few different ones so i guess it's now a proper tourist site.

Yes - quite an extensive tourist site. One can spend a couple of hours just in the tunnels. And the underground field hospital and communications center are even more interesting than what one sees in the Cabinet War Rooms . . . .

Here's another vote for Hever [Henry V111/ anne boleyn] penshurst [can't remember] Knole [Vita sackville-west] and Chartwell [Churchill]. There is also a famous garden at Sissinghurst.
It's a beautifull area this time of year, with terrific leaf-colour changes, pretty villages, oast houses, and closer to London than Dover. You could stay in Chiddingstone - there is a rather up-market pub called the Castle Inn.
i think you would enjoy this, whatever the weather.
hope you have a great time,
Ann

This may be a bit late, but don't stay in Dover if you want a pleasant experience.

There's any number of just about OK-ish hotels in and around. But Dover itself is dull, going on really rather nasty, as a place to do anything more than drive to a hotel late at night, then spend the night there.

Can't, I'm afraid, give you any more positive advice (we either just stay and get out fast, or spend the night at home).

With luck, this'll prompt someone to come up with some useful hotel/B+B suggestions. Possibly in Canterbury?

I agree that staying in Dover isn't such a good dea. The castle is one of the best sites in the country - but the town itself -- not so much.

this one is just a nice basic B&B in Deal. www.linksedge.co.uk/index.html

www.detlingcoachhouse.co.uk/ is near Leeds C./Maidstone

And www.orchardhousebandb.co.uk is a nice place between Dover and Folkestone

Dear All: Thanks very much for all your inputs!!! I'm really re-arranging my whole trip now and all the tips were brilliant ! And best of all, weather is really supposed to be fine - ipiiii Cheers everyone, Juliana