We had a little of a lie in this morning as we didn’t need to be at the airport till 11am... We stayed at the Protea Breakwater Lodge, which is part of the old gaol down near the waterfront. A very nice room, but the only problem that seems to be with the last couple of hotels we have stayed is the lack of lighting in the room.
Once at the airport we made use of our free Priority Pass membership through the Amex card , and went to the Airport Lounge where we had a complimentary breakfast and complimentary slow wifi... well I shouldn’t say that as it has been the fastest we have had in a while.
The flight to Dubai was easy and we were soon both engrossed in the movies they were showing.... Actually I found “The White Queen”..... A Mini Series based on 3 books of one of my favourite authors, Phillipa Gregory, and on one of my favourite subjects, the reign of the Yorks and the Tudors..... I was set; I had 10 episodes to get through.....
Once we got to Dubai we had to walk what felt like the length of the shopping mall.... oops I mean airport... ready to board the flight to Gatwick.... I continued to work my way through the episodes, but eventually we decided that we really needed to just close our eyes and sleep, otherwise we would be a mess by the time we arrived at Gatwick.
As I mentioned earlier we opted for the 18 hour flight over the 11 hour flight to save over half the cost... which in the end was not too bad.
We arrived at Gatwick and easily found our car hire place and headed off to Dover... the long way.... even longer as we took a couple of wrong turns.... how can they do that you ask as it is all motorways to get there... WELL, the man told us we need to follow the M23 then the M26 then M20 all the way there.... forgot to tell us that we need to go on the M 25 first..... Grrrr....... but the upside of this was that we found a sign that pointed to Leeds Castle..... Hey that is on my bucket list.... even that turned into a fiasco as we circled around about several times until we found the right exit.
How beautiful is Leeds Castle! There it stands in the middle of a lake surrounded by lovely landscaped gardens. Everywhere you looked it was a perfect picture. In its life time the castle has changed many hands until being privately owned, lived in and finally left in trust to the Leeds castle foundation.
The Castle also serves as a bed and breakfast, wedding venue, golf course and concert venue. Running on what I think was adrenalin we spent several hours there. On leaving we decided to drive into Leeds Village where we found a quaint pub who had a pint of beer and a glass of wine with our names on them.
From here we drove straight into Dover and found our Bed & Breakfast, The East Lee.... a gorgeous little house that had been renovated by the owner (retired builder) and turned into this home away from home. Our room was cute and comfortable and I had to take a running jump to get up on the bed. The whole house had this lovely cosy warm feeling. Each of the rooms, especially the breakfast room, was tastefully decorated all the way down the final finishing touches.
After unpacking our bags we took the car down to the depot and walked back, stopping for Garry to have a haircut and a quick fish and chips for dinner. We were really starting to get tired now, so after a nice hot shower we slept like logs till the next morning.
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