Folkestone Foray
My brother has managed too book a couple of days off work and today was forecast as the only good day of weather for virtually the whole week - so of course that meant another outing to the coast.
This time we decided on Folkestone - specifically the Harbour Arm and the Old Town - as it's somewhere we haven't been for well over a decade - although my brother insists he can't remember ever having been there, even though I'm just as sure he was with me the last time we were there!
When we arrived at the harbour and parked the car I immediately spotted the wonderfully colourful little house in my main image right on the perimeter. It's actually one of the Folkestone Triennial artworks which are dotted all around the harbour and the Old Town. This particular example is called "Holiday Home" and is by the sculptor Richard Woods. It's actually one if six one-third sized 'homes', identical except in their colour schemes, in 'unlikely' places - suggesting that no site is too small, too unlikely, or too inconvenient for its neighbours, for a holiday home.
We then walked out along the Harbour Arm (my second and third extras) towards the lighthouse at the end and back along the rooftop walkway above the old Harbour Railway Station and then onto a trail on the shingle beach (where I took my fourth extra of the extravagantly decorated roof of a beachside pavilion).
When then double backed to walk along the platforms of the railway station (see fifth extra) which originally opened in 1849 for boat train services across the channel to Calais and Boulogne. The sculpture which sits on the disused railway tracks of the old station (it finally closed in 2014) is called "Rug People" and is by the artist Paloma Varea Weisz. It is a five headed figure, its body wrapped in blankets and cardboard, appearing stranded and forlorn. The group huddles together on a carpet and represents the history of the station itself - including the bringing of First World War soldiers to the harbour to embark to France as well as being a terminus for the Orient Express until as recently 2008.
By now we were absolutely starving as we had left home without having any breakfast so we left the harbour and climbed the steep and cobbled Old High Street (see my sixth extra) with its myriad of idiosyncratic shops and cafes (see my seventh extra) looking for suitable refreshment.
Once we reached to the top of the hill we turned down a narrow side street and came across a delightfully atmospheric pub called The Pullman where we had a lovely lunch and well deserved (in our opinion!) pint.
There was still time for a stroll back through the rest of the Old Town, where I spotted my last artwork of the day - a giant mural of the head of a herring gull (see my last extra), before heading home. What a fantastic, and very colourful, day out!
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