Visiting Rye

Okay, I've finally found some time to continue with the summer vacation pics.

After leaving London, we met-up with one of Mari's friends in Orpington, which is a suburb about 45 minutes to the southeast. Mari's friend was from Japan and now lives in Orpington with her English husband. Exactly what was going to be in store that day was wholly unexpected to me. Minutes after arriving at Orpington, we hopped in their Vauxhall and drove through Kent, down to the village of Rye near the southeast coast.

Rye is located in East Sussex, about 1 km from the English channel. According to Roman surveys, the area was once accessible by sea but the shoreline shifted and now it's on the edge of a large marsh. For those who are interested, there was quite a bit of literature about how the marsh was drained over the centuries, how ditches were dug, how perforated clay pipes were buried and... well, it was all way too interesting.

Despite being quite a small town, Rye its worthy of notice due to the great effort which has been put into maintaining its Tudor appearances.

The oldest structure Rye was its sole remaining city gate. It dates back to the 13th century and was the only part of the town which survived the thorough burning given to it by the French in 1377 during the Hundred Years' War.

This was a fairly light day of travel and we decided to get to bed early so we could spend the next full day at Canterbury.