Traveling Tolins 2

  After an overnight sail to Dover, we docked then traveled by bus nearly two hours to Canterbury. Canterbury  is a  city  and  UNESCO World Heritage Site , in the county of  Kent , England; it was a  county borough  until 1974. It lies on the  River Stour . The city has a mild oceanic climate. Canterbury is a popular tourist destination, with the city's economy heavily reliant upon tourism, alongside higher education and retail. As of 2011, the city's population was over 55,000, including a substantial number of students and one of the highest student-to-permanent-resident ratios in Britain. The city has been occupied since Paleolithic times and served as the capital of the Celtic  Cantiaci  and  Jute   Kingdom of Kent . Many historical structures fill the area, including a city wall founded in  Roman times  and rebuilt in the 14th century, the  Westgate Towers  museum, the ruins of  St Augustine's Abbey , the Norman  Canterbury Castle , and the  oldest extant school i

ALERT:  This blog post is exceptionally long.  Our Normandy stop, along with Delhi, India (Easter Sunday sunrise at Taj Mahal!), were the highlights of our four-month cruise.   Normandy was very emotional, both for Diane and myself.  Our dads served in WW II and Diane's dad and I served in Viet Nam. Our Normandy visit preceeded the 80th anniversity celebration of the June 6, 1944 landings. The  Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial  is a  World War II   cemetery  and  memorial  in  Colleville-sur-Mer ,  Normandy ,  France , that honors American  troops  who died in Europe during World War II. It is located on the site of the former temporary battlefield cemetery of Saint Laurent, covers 172.5 acres and contains 9,388 burials. The cemetery, which was dedicated in 1956, is the most visited cemetery of those maintained by the  American Battle Monuments Commission  (ABMC), with one million visitors a year. In 2007, the ABMC opened a visitor center at the cemetery, relating the global