April 21 - 22, 2022 - Days 22 & 23 - Rye, England

 Don and I had originally planned to take the Translink express bus to the Dublin airport in order to fly to Gatwick, England, however, when we tried to purchase a return bus ticket for the 26th we were unable to because the Translink employees were going on strike. Not wanting to pay over $200 to take a taxi back to Rostrevor, even if we COULD find a taxi willing to drive us about 80 miles, we drove instead and paid $75 to park in the Blue airport parking lot, the cheapest and furthest from the airport. It's a good thing we only had a Don's backpack and my roll aboard style luggage/backpack because the parking lot is mostly very large gravel, no rolling your suitcase along this:

We had to drive all the way to row W2 (and it starts at A1 and each letter has about 15 rows) to find a spot to park, and the transfer bus to the airport was bi-articulated bus and it was full. 

We had been hearing horror stories about the long wait times to get through security at the Dublin airport so we left ourselves plenty of time so as not to miss our flight. We needn't have bothered, there are two terminals at Dublin and the one we flew out of, Terminal 1, was practically empty at security, it took us all of 10 minutes to breeze through. It's Terminal 2 that is bigger and busier.  

Our friends, Jilly and Luc (and Slinky, their spaniel) picked us up at the "Express Pick-up" area at Gatwick airport, which is a parking ramp and costs £5 per 10 minutes, luckily they were a little late so they just drove in and got us and drove out but it still cost them £5 just to do that! If you just drive up to the airport and drop-off or try to pick-up and don't park in the ramp it's still £5! There is a camera and it takes a picture of your license plate and charges you. I don't think that would go over so well in Minnesota, we drop off and pick up for free as long as we don't park in a ramp.

By the time we got to Rye it was close to 8pm and our small hotel was locked and no one was at reception. Our friend, Jilly, called the hotel and they had us go to the lockbox at the top of the outside stairs and enter a code to retrieve the key to the hotel, and then we went to our unlocked room where there was a room key attached to a piece of wood with our room number on it. The key was a skeleton key and I wish I had remembered to take a picture. The outside stairs to the building are 300 years old, here's a picture:

We did a lot in Rye, our friends Jilly and Luc arranged a lot of stuff for us in advance, it was very nice of them. We took a "Town Crier" tour on Friday and also visited a small museum.

Pictures from the Town Crier tour on Friday the 22nd:

Mermaid street, the most photographed street in England

Another view of Mermaid street.

"Trader's Passage" a walk that starts behind our hotel and climbs steadily.

"The house with the crooked chimney." What's interesting about this building is that it's very old but it was made to look newer by the addition of the brick tiles on the building. They're not really bricks, just 1/4 inch tiles that look like bricks. After a wealthy person named Lamb built his home of bricks, very modern at the time (the 1700s), many of the home owners decided that they wanted their homes to look modern also, hence the overlay of brick tiles.

Lamb House. The Lambs controlled politics in Rye for over 100 years.

 

Shakespeare performed a play here at the Mermaid Inn when he left London during the plague. It was also a notorious hangout of the Hawkhurst smugglers, who did as they pleased in the town of Rye because they were violent and people were terrified of them, and also they bribed the town officials. The Mermaid Inn is supposed to be one of the most haunted buildings in all of the UK. There are secret passages and tunnels and stairs. All I know is that we couldn't get a room there because it was sold out.

One of the oldest buildings in Rye.

The Town Crier in front of "The house with two front doors". Many of the houses on Mermaid street have names, such as "The house opposite" which is is the house just opposite the Mermaid Inn, this house is said to have been built in the 1500's by two gay men who wanted to live together as a couple but didn't want to be tried and executed for homosexuality. Even though it looks like two different homes inside there are secret doors in the walls, only one kitchen, and only one door to the private garden, which lends credence to the story.

Ypres Castle (pronounced "Wipers tower" by the locals because to hell with the French, especially since the French sacked the town hundreds of years ago and burned down a large portion of the place) that was a prison longer than it was ever a castle.

This gibbet and partial skull are locked in the attic of the town hall. It is all that's left of John Brede and that is a story for another day.

What is left of the Land Gate.

After the tour (and there is a lot more of the tour than is posted here, it was really informative and lasted almost 3 hours) we stopped for a proper English cream tea at Simon's Pie Man, where we had teacakes, scones, jam, and clotted cream and decided that was good enough for lunch. We then went to the tiny Rye Museum because I wanted to see the old arcade machines and the mock-up of Rye as it would have looked 300 years ago.

The building circled in blue in the right hand side of the picture is the building that is now "The Old Burrough Arms" where we are staying while in Rye.

I bought tokens for the animatronic arcade machines, one British pound gets you seven very old English pennies. 

We ate dinner that night just down the street at Simply Italian. The food and service was excellent. Pizzas and steaks for dinner and then off to bed.