UK Day 27 - Canterbury

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!

UK Day 26 – Dover

The day started off looking like it might be fine, but it turned to wet rather too soon. It was not a good day. I couldn’t find the bus to get to the castle (to get 25% off the ticket price), so ended up having to hike up the hill, taking photos of the odd building. There’s not so many nice ones – probably got bombed in WWII:

And as if hiking up the hill to the castle isn’t punishment enough, I had to pay the full student price of over 11 GBP for admission.

I didn’t think it was worth it, and if I’d been able to fill the day otherwise, I would’ve not gone. If you’re into military stuff, the tunnel systems in the cliff would’ve been interesting. I only went on the tour because it was included in the price.

Some of the nice buildings on the site were completely empty. I thought they should turn them into some sort of museum and let people look at them:

 

The tower display inside was very nice though. It must’ve been very recently refurbished with new furniture etc in the style of the age it was built. They even lit fires in some of the rooms, so it even smelt (somewhat) authentic. The furniture being new meant that they let you walk up to it and take photos etc, so that was nice:

    

The views from the castle over the sea and harbour, and all around the country and town were pretty good too.

The roman lighthouse was interesting because it was so very old. The church next to it, St Mary in Castro was pretty plain and had obviously been repaired a few times!:

The weather actually cleared up for a short while and I chatted to a lady walking her dog and she told me she’s been coming here in every season for years and today’s was the best weather she’d ever experienced up here! Wow! The sunshine only lasted about 30 minutes, though. At least it wasn’t too terribly windy.

    

I was going to walk to the cliffs for more photos, but it started to seriously rain, so I skipped it and went into town to the museum instead. It was charging admission of 3 GBP for tourists (locals got in free), which was unusual for a museum. But since it was raining and I had nothing else to do, I went in. They had a 3500 year old boat in their display (bronze age), which must be pretty famous – probably the reason for the charge. The film on how they dug it up and preserved it was pretty interesting.

Afterwards I made the mistake of having ‘cream tea’ i.e. scone and tea across the square (Dickens something I think it is). It was closing at 4.30pm(!!), so I only just made it in. Something was not right with it – I don’t know if the scones were funny or the cream was off or what. Nobody else seemed to notice though, so I ate half and left the rest, feeling ripped off again. The day just didn’t go my way today!

 

So I went back to my room and worked on my blog. Adam came up at one stage and told me he’d go and get the extra blanket I’d requested (I’d been cold in the early hours of the morning), after giving me a hug. Maybe he could tell I’d had a shit day. I spent the evening planning what to see the next few days. I think the rain is settling in and will disrupt my plans. We’ll see.