Immediately across the bridge, descend a slope to the right, and through a kissing gate enter the bottom edge of a sloping field. When the path forks, take the left branch to climb a steep flight of steps to emerge by the bridge spanning the deep cut of the A2. There are numerous steps, and just after passing below a house, take an unmarked grass path on the right, leading between the bushes and trees of Broadlees Bottom. This plunges steeply downhill with views onto Dover Harbour.
Leaving the picnic site at its Dover-end entrance, take the tarmac footpath on the left of the twisting road of approach. St Margaret’s also has a free car park not far from the church, accessed via Reach Road. Although the walk is described as starting from the White Cliffs Picnic Site, it could as easily begin in St Margaret’s at Cliffe, served by bus from Dover and Deal. It passes above St Margaret’s Bay where tradition has it that cross-Channel swimmers set out for France, and from the clifftop walk France itself can often be seen just 20 miles/32km away. But it also explores a slightly tilted land of big fields with big skies stretched over all. This walk has views of the castle, and of the cliffs. Today it remains as stubbornly defiant as the cliffs on which it stands.
Above Dover the massive castle that overlooks both the town and the Channel itself was England’s second line of defence after the White Cliffs, and not even Hitler’s bombardment during World War II could raze it to the ground. To the invading Romans they must have seemed impregnable. Celebrated in literature, in song, on countless paintings and photographs, when seen from a homebound Channel ferry they symbolise much more than just an upthrusting wall of chalk. The White Cliffs of Dover have represented the gateway to England for centuries.
0 kommentar(er)
