Getting close to the end

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Geo: 51.279, 1.07992

We use Bookings.com for all of our reservations. I picked out a place in Lavenham to spend one night. Apparently I didn't read the fine print. When we reached Lavenham, we couldn't find the place. It was actually in a small village about 4 miles away. The TomTom couldn't find it, but at least my phone could. We drove down a couple of lane and a half roads onto a single track road, then onto a dirt road. It was at the end of the dirt road. It was a 15th century farm house out in the middle of nowhere! We checked in and unpacked. She gave us a couple of places to have dinner. We picked one and made a reservation for 7:00PM. After dinner, we started to drive back in the dark and promptly got lost! There we were, on a little single track road in the middle of nowhere in the dark. No cell service and our TomTom didn't know where to go. We headed back towards the restaurant hoping to find it and start again. Low and behold, there was the road we needed to turn on. Luck beats out technology again! We left Cambridge and headed for Bury St. Edmunds. It has been around since the first century AD. We visited the abbey there. It is just a ruins of an abbey because during the reformation from Catholicism to Protestant most of the abbeys across England were destroyed. It would have been a huge building. There was a plaque there stating something about signing the Magna Carta in 1214. We then headed for Lavenham. Lavenham is a quintessential English village with half timbered houses and a few thatched roof houses. As with a lot of towns in England, wool was the principal product and made many people rich. Some of the houses were built in the 12th century and you can see them leaning one way or the other. People still live in them today. This morning, we woke up to a drizzle. We left the B&B and headed toward Canterbury. Soon it was pouring rain. This is our first day with a sustained rain. Our TomTom wanted to take us almost into London and then back out to get to Canterbury. We didn't want to go that way. We forced him to go our way by picking out towns along the route we wanted to go. We also wanted to miss the toll road. So our 2 1/2 hour drive to Canterbury turned out to be a 4 1/2 drive. Mind you it was pouring during most of the drive. We checked into our hotel, which is a quaint little hotel not too far from the city center. Stacy says the area looks a little dodgy, but we haven't had any problems. We walked into the city center to look around a little. Again it started to rain heavily. We found a pub and ordered a pint to wait out the storm with a bunch of other people. It soon stopped raining and we continued on. We saw the huge cathedral, but couldn't go inside because it was already closed. Tomorrow we will return and go thru it and see the old abbey ruins here also.

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Photos

Us at the pub
This pub is called The Nutshell. It is the smallest pub in Britain. There were 10 people in it and it was packed. If you tried to line up 3 deep at the bar, you would be outside the door.

Stacy by a marker.
This marker was put up in the late 1st century.

Memorial for WWII vets
This bench was made from an airplane wing

Comments

[Michele McGauvran]

That's just crazy. Looks cool.

[Michele McGauvran]

That is just stunning. I really need to get to Europe.

[bfsize15]

Is that a picture of Mudder getting a picture of the gate?