Digital Distraction - Mike's Blog. For Serious.: Canterbury Tales

Boat Tours

Yesterday I made a Pilgrimage. I got up at 8, showered, packed, ate and made my way down to Victoria Coach Station. Word to the wise, if you have a printer, buy your coach tickets online. If you get your tickets from National Express online, they are roughly half price. Unfortunately at the station tickets ended up being 14 pounds each way, but I had committed to going, bit the bullet and paid the money. The bus ride was the prescribed two hours length, although I would say that a good deal of that time was spent going through London stopping to pick other passengers up.

Gondolier in Canterbury

Getting into Canterbury, I had pretty much no idea where I was or where I should be going. However, The touristy area is quite close to the bus station and after walking for a minute in the right direction I was right at their High Street. Walking down the street I came across a building marked ‘Hospital’ which seemed to be a bit odd as it was marked with ‘visitors welcome’ so I ventured inside. Turned out that Hospital referred to the Olde English meaning of Hospitality, and the building was from 1100AD for visiting friars. Pretty neat place, only cost 75p to get in and I snapped a picture or two.

Hobgoblin Public House

On the way out the curators of the hospital told me to visit the friars quarters and garden located just around the corner. I walk down that way and missed the gardens, but caught a nice looking pub called ‘The Old Brewery Tavern.’ I went in thinking it would be a brew pub, but instead it turned out to be an average pub with standard brews made locally, neither of the two I had were very good. However they had wireless internet and the place had some charm so it wasn’t a loss. When I came back out I found the gardens which were located down a dimly lit driveway. A nice babbling brook crossed the pathway, and the bridge overtop provided a quaint picture, with tourists in boats being guided along.

Singing their Heart Out

After the gardens and poking around a bit I went to the Canterbury Cathedral, famous for the death of Thomas Becket, who was an Arch Bishop that was murdered by the King. Well, he wasn’t really murdered by the king, but some of his Knights thought the King wanted them to kill the Arch Bishop so they took it upon themselves to do the deed, or so the storey goes. Either way, I went and saw Cathedral. The price of admission for a student was 6.50 pounds and while I don’t usually bother with paying to see churches, it looked like this was the be all and end all of Canterbury, so I went for it.

Canterbury Cathedral Main Hall
(Could you imagine if this is where you went to church each week?)

Inside the place was really quite well done. The main hall where services are still done each day was huge and had many tombs within it. Leading away I saw the location where the Bishop had been killed and the replica swords on the wall. In the basement there was a really old crypt, which was definitely the most impressive sight. The crypt, standing since 1000AD, housed the remains of many religious figures, and a museum in the back housed goblets and religious gifts from the past 1000 years.

Slayer's Tools

While I was walking around I wondered how much more you would get out of the place it I had been on a walking and guided tour. Knowing that these would be considerably expensive I had elected not to enquire. However, it was really hard to understand the significance of what I was seeing while roaming around. On two occasions I asked the docents (is that the right term?) to tell me a bit about what I was looking at, and these quick questions turned into quite long and in depth discussions about the cathedral and its history. It definitely pays to ask!

After seeing the cathedral I walked around a bit longer, soaking up the city and finally I made my way back to the bus. The area was a lot like visiting old Quebec City, the same sort of sprinklings of old sights with little new boutique shops and pedestrian boulevards everywhere. A quaint city, and interesting day traveling in England. I would caution though, I tried to do this one on the cheap, and it ended up costing me about 38 pounds. Not the cheapest day so far.