Today my time was a little tighter than previous days. I was due to return the rental car to Heathrow Airport around 2.30pm. However, I still had about three stops that I wanted to make. These included Rochester Castle, Lullingstone Roman Villa and the home of Charles Darwin.
Rochester Castle
The first stop this morning was another castle. I may have seen a few castles in the last few days, but they do not seem to get old. They are all different, some are no more than an outline on the ground, with some almost entirely intact.
Rochester Castle is more towards the intact end of the scale. However, inside you can still see that it is significantly deteriorated from years of disuse. There is enough structure left to allow you to explore almost to the very top. Once you are up there the views are great in every direction.
Below are a couple of other photos from Rochester Castle. The first is the original gatehouse, which has seen better days but is still in use to access the castle. The second is a photo from inside Rochester Castle.
Lullingstone Roman Villa
I made a brief stop at Lullingstone Roman Villa. It is very similar to the Roman Palace that I stopped at yesterday. There has been quite an extensive floor plan uncovered at this site with a large central mosaic. Ther have also been many partial walls that help to fill out the floor plan of this Villa. The villa itself is almost 2000 years old, but the mosaics are the most interesting aspects.
Charles Darwin House
The final stop before heading towards London is the home of Charles Darwin. There was no photography allowed inside, but I still got some great shots in the garden and outside the house.
The entire ground floor of the home has been restored to how it would have looked when Charles Darwin lived in the house. A range of photos and notes have been used to make this possible.
The house is where Charles Darwin based himself for undertaking many of his experiments. Along with where he did most of his writing for many of his books. Charles Darwin worked closely with both animals and plants and as such the house has an extensive garden. There have been efforts made to maintain the garden as it might have appeared when Charles Darwin lived here. However, this has been done through the notes that were taken by his wife, as it was primarily her domain.
Into London
After my visit to the home of Charles Darwin, it was time to head for London. I got the rental car returned and figured my way from Heathrow to the Kensington Gardens area where my hotel is.
While I took a short walk this afternoon, I did not get much time to look around between the rain. So I am hoping for some better weather tomorrow to explore the area some more. Plus of course to get some photos to share with you.
