We rented a car, and Saturday morning set out for Canterbury in Kent. The weather was cool but sunny and Chris navigated the city streets amazingly well, considering he was not only driving a manual transmission, but driving on the completely wrong side of the road! (Everyone here does it - it's something of a phenomenon.) He was fantastic. As was Canterbury. I'm sure you're expecting some sort of history lesson here on Chaucer and his tales, but on that particular front... I got nothin'. I'm serious. Even after knowing we were going to be there, then having been there, then coming back, I have no clearer idea now about who Chaucer was or why he chose Canterbury about which to write than I did before we went, although it is a charming little place. And the Kent countryside is quite lovely.
The drive once we finally got on the motorway was very pleasant - getting out of the city itself took nearly an hour due to Saturday morning traffic. Arriving in Canterbury, we were able to use a "park & ride" lot and took a shuttle bus into the city center which was quite convenient. Canterbury has the look of a Shakespearean village with its Tudor-style buildings and narrow windy streets. Its origins date back to the 6th century when St. Augustine founded an abbey there; its more recent attraction is the Canterbury Cathedral, the building of which was begun in 1070. The cathedral is probably most famous for being the site of the controversial murder of Thomas Becket, the then-Archbishop of Canterbury, by the knights of King Henry II. Thomas, apparently, was just too darn Catholic, and was eventually made a saint by Pope Alexander as a result of his martyrdom. As we toured the cathedral, Dad became somewhat obsessed with the where's and how's of Becket's murder, and eventually tracked down Mr. Seares, probably the oldest docent of any cathedral in all of the UK. Mr. Seares may have moved slowly (remember Tim Conway's 100-year old man on the Carol Burnett show?), but he knew his stuff and gave us all a detailed and informative accounting of the last moments of said Becket. Turns out the guy was warned by the monks and could've made a run for it, but that would have made the afore-mentioned martyrdom somewhat hard to claim. Before our tour of the cathedral, we ironically had our lunch at the delightful Thomas Becket pub. Following the tour, we walked the medieval town streets a bit, then took the old folks to our reserved B&B outside of town to check in and let them take a nap. Chris and I went back into town and (after getting just a tad lost) checked out the city wall and the quaint banks of the River Stour. Later, we all had dinner together at the pub/restaurant back at the inn; it was a busy night and although service was lacking, the food was surprisingly tasty, and we were entertained as we listened to the accounting of the Royal Wedding as read from the Daily Mail by the party at the next table.
The next day we departed for Maidstone and Leeds Castle. The drive was really reminiscent of our trips around Ireland - narrow, windy roads and in some spots absolutely no shoulder - just a hedge or a stone wall with which the person in the front passenger seat feels she might easily become one with... But again, Chris really did a great job driving. Truly.
Leeds Castle was worth the trip mainly because of its gorgeous setting. It bills itself as "the loveliest castle in the world"; I'm not sure if that's necessarily true. The grounds were indeed breathtaking and really lovely; the castle itself was impressive, but arguably not the most impressive I've seen so far. Originally a wooden fortress dating to the 9th century, it has served as the home of Henry VIII's first queen, Catherine of Aragon, the country seat of Lord Culpepper, colonial governor of Virginia (my home state) and more recently the showplace of Lady Baillie, and American heiress who purchased the castle in 1926 and entertained the likes of Douglas Fairbanks, Charlie Chaplin and Errol Flynn. The castle today shows as an homage to many of its various pasts, and is an enjoyable tour. We ended our visit with a look around the aviary - Lady Baillie apparently had a real thing for birds - where we saw a peacock have an inquisitive encounter with a toucan, then had an ice cream cone and headed on our way back to London.Just in the time (a full week) its taken me to write this blog, Dad & Darlene have visited Bath, Moreton-in-Marsh, Oxford, and Aylesbury. They hope to head off to Dublin this week for a tour of the Emerald Isle. We've enjoyed being their "home stop" on their whirlwind visit to the UK.
https://picasaweb.google.com/swronsky/CanterburyLeedsCastle?feat=directlink
No comments:
Post a Comment