Today I went to Canterbury. This was the reason I’d decided to come down here to this part of the country. I caught the train, since it was only a little more (off-peak) costing 6.60 GBP, but only taking 16 minutes instead of 36. I think the weather might have something to do with it (it was raining) but Canterbury somehow didn’t live up to its hype.
The cathedral was nice – I even coughed up the extra to do a guided tour, but even that was somewhat lacklustre. I’d had better free ones. I wandered around inside and out for about 3 hours all up, including the tour and waiting for it and then the bit I did on my own afterwards. I guess I got my money’s worth. Maybe. I think the thing that makes the cathedral most interesting is that it was the first one in England, and that Thomas Beckett was martyred in it. As far as English Cathedrals go, I think the one in Durham was nicer and more impressive:
It was pretty difficult to get a shot of the entire cathedral here, too:
I did like the cloisters, though :-) :
The inside (no photos of the crypt were allowed – a shame, since that was very nice):
By the time I got out of the Cathedral District, it was after 2pm, so I had some lunch. It was expensive (7.55 GBP for a sausage pie and salad plus 3.95 GBP for a special cider), but nice enough. After this I headed towards the Westgate, having decided to give the Canterbury Tales ‘experience’ a miss (on advice from the internet on my Android phone).
It started to seriously rain, so I only took a couple of snaps and decided to get myself a nice coffee at a Patisserie I’d passed on my way there. This was probably the highlight of my day, because the staff were just so nice (and the coffee was really good!).
I then headed to the Canterbury Museum, since I didn’t want to wander around in the rain. Unfortunately, it was closed 5 minutes before I got there (at 4pm!). So then I decided to bite the bullet and head to St Augustine’s Abbey. Naturally, it was closed too, but I took a couple of shots from the gate. It wasn’t much to look at anyway.
I passed by Christ Church College, because I’d seen the spires poking up when I was heading to the Abbey. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let me photograph inside because it’s a private school. Looked very nice, too. :-(
I was sick of the rain, and my umbrella had lost its fight with the wind and was pretty tattered, so I stopped in at Poundland (like Crazy Clark’s, except everything costs 1 GBP) and bought myself a new umbrella before heading to the train station and getting the train ‘home’.
One good thing with the sucky weather is that my blog is finally up-to-date again!
