Rye - day 2

Today we woke up late after my second fitful night of sleep. I don't know if it was that I was sleeping close to the main road or those @)$* seagulls screaming at 5am but I felt like a zombie when I woke up. Kate would probably say it was the ghosts. She did say that I talked in my sleep again.

Another huge breakfast with even more toast (what is it with the toast?) where I had "porridge" (oatmeal for the rest of us) and tried this nasty stuff called Marmite. Kate and Michelle had eggs that apparently rival their mother's light and fluffy breakfast offerings. After we were stuffed we did the thrilling job of 2 loads of laundry. Kate and I thought about taking the train to Cantebury in the afternoon but those plans never quite were realized. Instead we puttered around Rye, visiting the Wednesday Farmers Market, the St. Mary's church (and bell tower) and a bunch of the wonderful little shops. The town was hopping - we didn't realize how popular it was because it had been dead quiet during the evenings when we were around since we arrived. (The pictures are all in this album)

From the top of the bell tower you can really understand why they built the town where they did - you can see everywhere. Just as I was climbing down, the clock struck 1 and my ear felt like it was packed with cotton the rest of the day.

We walked over to the Ypres Tower, where we saw the hoard or French teens. At least we assumed they were French as that was what they were speaking. They had invaded the town for the day. They were being... so... teenlike. I kind of wished Matthew was there to see how they acted because, well, it was so similar to him and his friends, it transcended cultural boundaries. It did make me miss the kids though.

We had lunch near the Rye Castle/Ypres Tower Museum at the Ypres Castle Inn. Kate and Michelle had an Asparagus soup and a pint of a different type of cider (it might have been Magners), and I had a Dover Sole that was litterally fresh off the boat caught in Rye bay. The sole was served bone in, which was ok, but there was also some guts or brains or something that was kind of gross which I could have done without. It was bathed in butter and lemon and was incredibly tender. The garnish was a seaweed called Samphire that grows only natively in the Rye marshland and (as the waiter claimed) one other place in Britain. The samphire was good, salty but a bit freaky to eat.

We all agreed that the bartender was cute.

After lunch we wandered back up the hill and around town some more, then Kate got tired and went back to the room to nap. Michelle and wandered some more and bought some very funny postcards for my friend Elizabeth and some jewelry from a second hand store. I'm not usually one to buy presents on a trip, but these were just too perfect to pass up. The woman in the second hand store, who was VERY chatty, apparently lived in New York city around the time I was born and lived there.

Michelle and I had fantastic tea with scones, clotted cream and jam up at "Simon the Pieman" - Rye's oldest tea shop. The scones were incredible.

For dinner we walked to the other side of town, marvelling at how quiet it is when the day tourists leave. Our walk took us to where the "Landgate" stands, something we had missed in previous walks. There used to be 2 gates - the Landgate on one side of town and the Strandgate on the other. The Strandgate stood on the site where the hotel's kitchen is today. It was demolished in 1708 because carriages had gotten too big and couldn't fit through. The Landgate must have been wide enough to last the test of time, although it's obvious that it hwas heavily damaged and burned over the years (from the Normans, apparently).

The Old Borough Arms is partially built on the old town wall, and you can see the old wall in the hall near the downstairs rooms. There was originally an old wooden building in front of the wall, but it was blown up in WW II. Glynne told us that the Germans were on their way to bomb London but they were overpowered and pushed back. They didn't have enough fuel to get back with all of their munitions on boar, so they bombed the town). One thing I'm wondering is if the bombing that destroyed the old building was the same day as the bombing that destroyed the garden house where Henry James wrote.

Anyway, dinner was at the Fish Cafe - the downstairs cafe was a little less expensive, formal and hopping as the upstairs, so we chose to eat there. It was fabulous. We had a great wine (Berticot Savignon Cotes De Duras 2005), taramasalata with breadsticks and olives. I had a dish of Lobster, Globe Artichoke and Roquette risotto with parmesane cheese for dinner and an "Iced Cherry Parfait with Vanilla Syrup Basil" for desert. The Parfait was like a frozen whipped cream "cake" with cherries in it. MMMMMMM.

Our post dinner activity included a bit of time at the internet cafe across the street and digesting.