Dover Castle

Dover Castle is huge fun in a 'fun family day out' sort of way. It is massive and occupies an imposing site with views over both the town of Dover and its port. It is also immaculately preserved - in fact, it is almost too well preserved. It can feel more like a Disney theme park than a real historical site.

The castle played a key role in keeping the rest of the world (i.e. the French) out and thereby keeping us as a nation apart. I'm not sure why. It was all a bit jingoistic and militaristic for my liking. It amused me that many of the castle's defensive features had French names. So much effort and money going into keeping the French out, even though they had the best names for stuff. It also amused me that, from the castle battlements, you could watch the cross-Channel ferries arrive, bringing new invasions several times an hour.

This photo offers a more accurate representation of the modern English/British/European/human mentality than any of the dozens I took of the castle. As you walk back to the car park you pass a large road sign, the front of which directs traffic to the cliffs, the port and elsewhere. On the back, hundreds of visitors, on their way out of the castle, had deposited the little sticker they give you on the way in to show you've paid. All these people answering the irrational compulsion to leave their mark, like a cat pissing against a tree, and all displaying modern man's apparently congenital inability to take their litter home with them. At least it was colourful.