Tales of Canterbury

So, as if we hadn't had enough travel this month we decided to tack on a detour to Canterbury as well.

After getting off the very lovely Eurostar we had a fairly fraught journey out of London. We had 3 connections to make, and the first one got stuffed up because the trains from St Pancras weren't stopping at Tower Bridge – which was where we needed to transfer to get our train to Canterbury. So we had to transfer to the Tube. Oh joy. Kathy got cranky. Matt lost 1 lot of our sandwiches. Anyway, there we were on the Tube Station to try and get to Tower Bridge. We just missed one train, and were followed down to the Northern Line by 4 blokes who had just got off a Qantas flight. One of the guys just made it on to one of the earlier trains. The other 3 ask 'is this the train to Leicester?' Um, no – this is a London tube. Turns out the bloke who got on the tube had no ticket, and they should have transferred to a National Rail service. Whoops.

We eventually got there, and got to our B&B. It was a pretty quaint little place, opposite the ruins of the old Norman Castle. We checked in, then went for a wander.

One of the old city gates

Gateway to Canterbury Cathedral

We found that the town centre is very compact, and there are lots of half-wood panelled buildings. We searched for a pub which had been strongly recommended in the Lonely Planet. It was listed as Simple Simon, but we worked out that it had changed, and was now called the Parrot. It's a very old pub, and the building dates from between 1370 & 1480. The first pub on the site was licensed in 1740. Cool.

Thursday morning we looked around the ruins of Canterbury Castle.

Apparently Canterbury was one of the first towns to surrender unconditionally to the Normans, so William the Conqueror had a wood motte and bailey castle built there quickly, and it was shortly rebuilt in stone and flint 10 years later.

Some of the flint in the walls of Canterbury Castle

It was never used defensively, and by the 13^th century had been superseded by castles at Dover. It was turned in to a prison, and is now in ruins.

It's still an impressive looking pile.

Matt at Canterbury Castle

We then headed off to the Cathedral, but were thwarted when we were informed that the Nave was closed until 11am so that furniture for a concert that weekend could be moved in. Nuts. So we wandered around part of the the old town walls and past some of the Uni. We stopped for a yummy coffee, then headed off to the Cathedral.

We were actually a little disappointed. While it looks very imposing from the outside it's actually the worse for wear – quite surprising given it's the most important place for the Church of England, and has been for 1500 years. We walked around some of the outside and through the cloisters,

Ceiling in the cloisters

Kathy in the cloisters

then through the herb garden,

View of the herb garden

Rear of the Cathedral

which is near the gateway in to Kings School. The herb garden was walled and contains all medicinal herbs. The chapter house was huge! There was room for 2 rows of monks. The inside of the Cathedral is huge. Our favourite part of the whole building was the crypt, all low curved ceilings and medieval frescos. If the whole place was originally like that it must have looked quite magnificent. We saw the spot where St Thomas' shrine was, and where the deed was done. The shrine was destroyed by Henry VIII, but there's a candle now which marks the spot. There are still lots of tombs and memorials. The memorial for the Black Prince was the best of the lot, and there were his actual and reproductions of his funeral clothes. We almost wish this had been the first big Cathedral we'd seen, as it's comparatively poorly maintained. Never mind. We also saw a display of some of the most amazing communion-ware we'd ever seen, including a 12^th century crozier which had been discovered in the tomb of a bishop. We were also disappointed in the very rude French tourists and groups of school children. Ah well, you get that I suppose.

For lunch we had a very yummy Spanish/Moroccan lunch platter with lots and lots of veges. Mmmmm. Suitably fortified we went to The Canterbury Tales display. There were student groups ahead and behind us, who didn't quite get some of what was going on, but we thought that some of is was pretty funny. Kathy particularly like the Wife of Bath's tale.

A good introduction to the Tales, we thought.

After that we were just wandering around deciding what to do next when we walked past the Eastbridge Hospital. So we decided to go in. It's not a hospital to heal the sick, but was accommodation for the poorest of pilgrims, and was established in 1180. It had room for 12 per night, and they were charged 4 pence per night. Most amazingly it still provides accommodation for poor pensioners who have a connection to the church. It was absolutely brilliant. The refectory had the best frescoes we'd seen all day – well preserved as they'd been covered up for centuries, and had only recently been uncovered. The colours were still really vivid. It was Matt's highlight of the day.

By the time we'd been through there we were starting to get a bit tired. We found a pub called the Cricketers. Brilliant. There were lots of Spitfire advertising posters, which were really good to look at.

(yes, this is a bit dark, but if you launch this photo it will be easier to see)

And the beer was the best we'd had so far during our time in Canterbury.

Delving in to the Lonely Planet again we selected for dinner a place which does Moroccan food. The food was good, but was spoilt slightly by the very skinny, blond belly dancer. We really don't want to see ribs while we're eating, thanks. Mind you, some tables thought it was brilliant. Each to their own.

Friday was our last day in Canterbury. It was a brilliantly sunny day. We were a little frustrated that most places didn't open until 10am, but that allowed us to have a lazy start to the day. We went to the Roman House Museum, which was absolutely FANTASTIC. Canterbury was a Roman settlement, which fell in to ruin after the Romans withdrew from Britain. Roman Canterbury is now many meters under the current ground level, and much is being, or had been, excavated during roadworks, repairs and other such activities. There are some of the most amazing mosaics, which were the floor of a wealthy Romano-Britain's home. It was unearthed during the Blitz, along with some great bone pins and fine glassware. The Blitz may also be why some of the facade of the Cathedral looks so poor (other than just pollution). We went back to that great cafe for more coffee, then had a wander around in the sun in a lovely park beside the river.

Lunch was at the Bell and Crown, and instead of Spitfire (we think we've had our fill of that for the moment) we had Incubus Hop Daemon, which was yummy.

After lunch it was back to the B&B to pick up our luggage, and off to the railway station. The trip back to London was lovely, but the train from London to Cardiff was an absolute shocker. It was the worst ever trip we've had on a train. The train was one of the last ones from Cardiff, and it was over full (why the couldn't put an extra pair of carriages on, I don't know). There were people standing everywhere (thank goodness we had reserved seating), including all the aisle and the luggage areas, and we had the pleasure of a family who got on the wrong carriage, and proceeded to argue the whole way to their stop. Charming. There was also a baby who screamed most of the way to Wales, and the toilet in our carriage was broken. We finally got home, and were in bed by 11pm. Shattered, tired, glad to be home but sad that our journey was over.