(Tales from) Canterbury

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This past weekend, I went to Canterbury with Karen and one of her friends from school, Lora. None of had ever been, so we were all looking forward to the trip. They took the bus from Oxford on Saturday morning to come to my place. I was very thankful since I had returned from Romania the day before and didn't feel like getting up really early. We then headed out and had a nice drive. The traffic wasn't too bad. This was an interesting experience for me since I had not done any research before leaving. The girls planned everything, including booking the hotel. For those who have traveled with me before, you will know that this is a bizarre occurrence. I usually research, look at maps, etc. before going ANYWHERE! But I think they did a fantastic job of planning. I had a really good time.

We started out at St. Martin's Church, which is the oldest Christian church in England that is still in use. It's very small, so it didn't take us long inside. We did wander through the cemetery for a few minutes and looked at the headstones. Then, we went to the Roman Museum. Canterbury used to be a Roman town and a lot of stuff has been found while building newer stuff. The actual rooms were located underground at the level of the Roman town. The museum had rooms set up to show what life would have been like during the Roman period. There were also some mosaic-tiled floors that have been found. There was even a room where you could handle some of the finds, like pottery shards. After that, we headed towards the West Gate Towers, but got side-tracked when we passed the Eastbridge Hospital. This used to shelter pilgrims coming to worship at Thomas Beckett's shrine in the Cathedral. (For non-history people, Henry II made a remark about Beckett and several of his knights went and killed Beckett while in the Cathedral....big scandal at the time). This place is still in use as it houses 10 older people, 5 women and 5 men. We then continued on our way to the West Gate Towers. This used to be the main entrance to the city for pilgrims coming from the London area. There is a museum, but we just chose to stay outside and take pictures. Finally, we headed towards the Cathedral. We had plans to go to Evensong, which is at 3:30 on Saturdays. We arrived in time to tour the Cathedral before they shut it down to set up for the service. We got to see the tomb of the Black Prince of England as well as where Thomas Beckett's shrine used to be before Henry VIII had it destroyed. There is now a candle burning where the shrine was. The actual place where Beckett was murdered is also marked. After we finished the tour, we found a place to sit for the Evensong worship. During the service, they were accepting a new verger at the parish. A verger proceeds before the priest and carries his verge (in this case, a long silver stick). Vergers also help care for the building and grounds of the church.

The hotel was really nice. It was hard to find since it was dark and the sat nav wasn't very exact. However, we did find it and got settled in. The girls had found the oldest pub in the city where we planned to eat dinner. So, we set out in the dark and the pouring rain to head back to city centre. I had looked on the map before leaving and thought I knew where we were going. After we got there, we discovered that we weren't in the correct location, even though the address matched. Sigh! By then, we were cold, wet, tired, and hungry, so we headed back to the hotel to eat in their restaurant. The food was good, so it all worked out. After dinner, we just sat around and read or relaxed.

The next day, we got up and had a good breakfast before heading out. We started at St. Augustine's Abbey, which is basically in ruins. However, since it is run by the English Heritage, there was an audio guide. Lots of good info about the history of the abbey. However, since it was all outdoors, it was REALLY cold. The wind was gusting a lot. Even I was cold! :-) After that, we went to the Norman Castle. The roof is gone, but the 4 walls were still standing. We could even climb a small staircase to get a little bit better view. That was the end of our list of things to see and do in Canterbury. Since it was pouring down rain and was cold, we decided to head home. The first half of the drive was pretty difficult, but then it stopped raining and wasn't too bad. We got back to Reading in the middle of the afternoon. The girls stayed for a little bit before catching their bus back to Oxford. I was glad to be back early since I needed to do laundry after being out of town for 2 weeks and planning to be out of town the following week (this week). I am currently in Leicester, England, working with the same customer that I worked with in Romania.

I promise to post pictures soon...probably this weekend.

Take care and have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

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