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Monday, May 26, 2014

Folkestone, Kent...

Folkestone is a town which overlooks the English Channel and DH and I stayed there as a frugal alternative to accommodation in  Dover. We would later regret this decision but I will write about this in another post. Suffice to say that 'one can't win 'em all'...and that exercising the skill of finding humour in all situations and maintaining that sense of humour 'keeps you young ish'! lol
We stayed on the street which runs beside the cliffs of the landmark known as the Leas, which has magnificent views of the English Channel.


Obviously a fair bit of money has been spent on this area of Folkestone as the facilities for families/day trippers and tourists were extensive. DH and I turned left from where we were staying but to the right led to cafes and a lovely bandstand...here is an image of that, taken from the internet at this website.


There are a few paths on the Leas, but we stayed on the top one and worked our way down to the centre of town...still at the Leas, we noticed this old funicular which must be wonderful for those people at the base of the cliffs who would like a quicker way back to the top...


(Before we left Folkestone we also took a photo of the funicular from the bottom of the cliff...)



But back to our walk...
We turned left at this statue as there were barriers up around some roadworks...



We wandered around the winding streets...I noticed what looked like a person sitting on the roof of a building...
That brick building there...
We asked one of the shopkeepers if there was a story about the sculpture of a woman wearing togs and a bathing cap, sitting on the edge of the roof.

He said that an artist used to have a shop/studio in the building and had actually made 5 sculptures of people sitting  up there on the roof. Our informant said the other 4 had 'fallen off' which was a bit disturbing perhaps??? lol. Any way the artist had long since left the area, whomever he might have been.
Our walk then took us past houses and eventually we walked down some steep steps and walked along to the harbour area...




 To the right of the photo you can see some white cliffs...
On the left of the photo is the historical Martello Tower of Folkestone
Zoom in a bit now...

Looking inland from the harbourside there are some wonderful views of rather elaborate looking buildings...




And beside the harbour is this ship shaped hotel complex...

So even though Folkestone was really just a 'dormitory town' for our trip to Dover Castle, there will be another post about this town, so I can show some of the other photos we took. A bit like a compare/contrast type of exercise :-) 

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

thankyou for sharing this amazing place Maria,hope you also have a lovely day.xx

Anthea said...

Maria I feel I've been on this walk with you - such gorgeous pics - I love the lady on the rood edge - a fun quirk in the town! x

Sue (this n that) said...

The sights there are to see. I love how the artist put those people on the roof - quite a talking point for newcomers to the town I expect.
As always, it's the quaint buildings you find to photograph that are a real feature of your posts. Those funiculars would save many a sore leg getting up those cliffs. Another great walk and reminisce for you of your holiday. Thank you Maria :D)

Soma @ inkTorrents.com said...

I recently started reading your blog. May I say I love it :)

-Soma