Fantastic!! I live in Italy but from 1970-1980 i lived in Capel Le Ferne between Dover and Folkestone on the cliffs . Got goose pimples when i saw the coach going down the Hill to Folkestone!! Thanks for sharing 👍
This made me cry, I remember taking the train from Victoria Station to Dover then getting on the sealink ferry to Oostende then taking the Oostende Vienna express all through the night to Vienna to visit my grandparents, lived that journey, done it almost every summer, now I live in Austria but alas that route does not exist anymore... I drive back to the UK occasionally, well gehöre corona and brexit... And I travel most of the journey but take the ferry from Dunkirk to Dover... Thank you for posting this, it brought back some wonderful memories of travelling to Austria with my mum in the 70s.
same with me , i traveled this route sine my childhood ,mid sixties, every year. From Aachen to Cheltenham to visit my parents and brother. due to corona not possible ,, makes me sad and angry.
Pure nostalgia. The 70's... I can't remember how many times we took the Ferry from Oostende to Dover and sometimes Folkstone but it was almost every month. The RMT had beautiful and very reliable ships. By '79 it was all gone......
I made the crossing Ostend - Dover over a hundred times during the 1970s, usually with my car, but sometimes as a foot passenger. To save money, I parked my car in Ostend and saved the fare. The cost of a ticket for foot passengers was peanuts, very cheap way of popping back home to see my parents for the weekend.
used to do this trip late a lot 50's 60's and 7o's In the early days the porters would swamp the ship and give you a card. they never lost our luggage and it was always on the ship or the Dusseldorf train etc. they used to wear cream jackets and hats with red i seem to remember, i cannot find any photos of them though.
I crossed in 1964. It took 4 hours. Not a ro ro ferry either. You drove on forward and deck hands spun the car round on a manually operated turntable. You then reversed onboard., and then disembarked forward. My recollection is of a very busy ferry that summer.
@@keithgompertz549 Many thanks for that reply. The crossing today from Dover to Dunkerque takes only 2 hours. It's interesting that the crossing to Ostend took twice as long in 1964.
Mike Ryan Hi Mike Ryan. Absolutely. I seem to recall that it largely followed the Calais route for about an hour or so and then ran parallel to the coast. I once did Ramsgate to Ostende. That took 4 hours too. Ex TT ship. Best crossing by far is Harwich to the Hook, overnight. Anyone crossed to Cuxhaven in Germany?
We did a school trip to Oostende , it too about four hours. What grossed us out were big rooms with multiple bunk beds in, and piles of saucepans to be sick into. Not nice. One kid's cap blew off into the North Sea, and poor ''Miss''' felt terribly ill...Lay on a deck chair looking pale with a damp flannel on her forehead. As kids we were wild and excited, and not sick at all.
