Blogs from Canterbury, Kent, England, United Kingdom, Europe

As today was my only day in Canterbury I had to fit as much as possible in today. My first stop was at Canterbury Tales. Occupying the former parish church of St. Margaret is a re-creation of medieval life. You get an audio guide and follow along on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Thomas Becket. As you go through the different scenes from the town, to the woods to the Cathedral you hear different tales by Geoffrey Chaucer. My favorite tale was The Pardoner’s Tale, about three young men who are looking for Death. They are in an ale-house and ask an old man where Death is. The old man sends them towards a tree in the distance. Once there they find a large pile of gold. The decide to stand guard over the gold ... read more

C&CC site near Canterbury opposite golf club - numbers 13, 13A &14 from the bus station! Nice site, bit pricey (£30pn inc electricity), very friendly helpful owners, nice and quiet, showers a bit naff!... read more

To all those who don’t know, I came home a month and 5 days early from travelling. Things slightly took a turn for the worst but I will get to that. The purpose of this blog is mainly to save me a little trouble to fully explain what has happened and I can refer them to this. By now means do I mean to milk my story and complain, this was just how it was and is. So here goes: I travelled through Peru and Bolivia relatively quickly. Overall I did Peru in a month and Bolivia in about 1.5 weeks. Peru treated me well and I had a great time. I did white water rafting; saw Machu Picchu twice and generally had a whale of a time. Due to riots and general political unrest on ... read more

We set off to Canterbury mainly with the idea of hooking up with Julia's sister. We had an embryonic idea at stopping for lunch at a NT garden for lunch, but inadequate planning meant we missed the junction off the M25 (it was hidden within a more major junction). So after a meander off at the next junction, we decided to press on and have a chill in the sun at the camp site. We had joines the Camping and Caravaning Club to obtain a discount and on-line booking capability. We had a nice pitch and all facilities available. The hose we bought at the end of the last trip made it so much easier to fill up and the dedicated Motorhome service point made disposing of grey water a doddle. Showers nicely hot, cubicles a ... read more

So to contradict my location heading for a second, some brief thoughts about my second day in London. Camden Town is intense and cool. The streets are lined with a bajillion tiny little shops, most of them punk (think British Hot Topic). Then there are a couple of open/indoor markets that are pretty much mazes of shops, many punk but some souvenir shops, some Claire's-like places and (my personal favorite) international bazaars with artifacts from pretty much everywhere. You could easily lose yourself and accidentally spend 3 hours in there. I did. National Gallery. Free. Pretty art. British children are 98543 times more considerate than American children. So today I took a bus to Canterbury for a day trip. The whole time I kept thinking "THIS is the England I missed." It's everything I remember small ... read more

All right some more things: It's great not to have to tip. It saves a boat load of money. Everything has the tax pre-built in, so if something costs a pound, then it costs a pound. I went to Canterbury today. I got to climb a castle wall. Also, our proffesor got drunk during lunch. I walked into the Canterbury Cathedral, as it was a place of pilgramage, thus making it a modern day tourist attraction. Upon entering the Cathedral I am met with a gift shop. This perplexed me as it seems to be blatantly blasphemous. It turns out that the proceeds go to helping keep the Church in order, or so I am told. It does take between 9,000-12,000 pounds per day to keep the Cathedral in working condition. I'm still not sure I ... read more

Well what a day. OMG. As you all know I endeavouring to do this trip as fiscially responsibly as I can. So I had a great idea, instead of hiring a GPS for £10.00 a day, I would buy one for £50.00 brand new, saving myself £40.00 over the period of 9 days. Well, not such a great idea really. I went out & got my GPS & then realised that I would have to charge it for 5 hours before I used it. Did I mention I bought it on the way to pick up the hire car. So their I am double parked in london, in my little red something....trying to find my way around. Guess what? I can safely say I have now visited & driven past most of the major attractions london ... read more