Hello, luv!
Hi there!
My name is Martha and I am a single, retired woman from the Denver area who is a big fan of Rick Steves tours. Since my first trip to France in 2012 I have been hooked! I am in love with England and decided to take the Villages of Southern England tour in the fall of 2018.
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CANTERBURY
Tour days 1 and 2: Finally, I was in Canterbury
I was very excited--kind of like the beginning of summer vacation in school--to be poised to start my Villages tour. I found Canterbury to be a nice medieval town with a very big cathedral. This is the headquarters of the Anglican church and my room looked right out on it! I could hear the bells from my bed. There is no better location than this!
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My first day in town I took it easy to rest up before the tour. I explored the streets and poked in and out of a few stores. Then I walked the short distance to St Augustine's Abbey. It was first built in 597 and flourished for almost 1000 years before Henry VIII had it demolished with most of the other abbeys in England. I find these ruined religious sites really moving. I think about what faith and skill they took to build and now they are just a pile of stones. But how many lives were changed by those stones? I contemplated the abbey as I had a late lunch in a pub near the hotel.
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At 5pm we had the first group meetup for the tour. It was a good and varied group and we began to get acquainted over dinner. We had a chance to taste a traditional British roast meal while chatting with new friends.
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The next day we had a couple appointments in our neighbor, the cathedral. We split into two groups and I went first to the fascinating stain glass workshop. David, a supervisor there, talked passionately about glass, both old and new. We saw medieval windows recently removed from the cathedral covered with muck. Later, as we toured the cathedral, we could admire the glowing colorful glass that had been cleaned in the workshop. What a contrast!
With a group switch we visited the cathedral. I marveled at how beautiful it was and what it took to build before modern tools. I should mention that a portion of the building is behind scaffolding. Just like any aging beauty it is getting saggy with time and needs a bit of a facelift!
On my free afternoon I walked the city walls and along the River Stour before meeting up with the group for a punt ride on that river. These flat bottomed boats are relaxing and provide a different view of Canterbury. Then a group of us went to Evensong at the cathedral. This mostly music service is lovely regardless of a person's religious inclinations.
Day 3: Dover and liquid refreshments
The morning dawned bright and sunny as we had our first ride on the coach that was our transportation for the next couple weeks. We met our driver, Paul, and he whisked us to Dover Castle. This sits right on the English Channel and has always been a strategic stronghold for whoever held the power. Below the building there are tunnels that hide several layers of forts/military garrisons/spy holes. I started in the underground maze where many WWII operations were executed, including the evacuation of Dunkirk. I moved from the dark space to the bright, windy top of the castle. On this clear day we could see across the channel to France.
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On the ride back to Canterbury we stopped to stand on top of the white cliffs and watch the port operations while Mark explained his opinion on Brexit. Very complicated, but it was lovely standing on the cliff while he did his best to simplify the issues.
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Back in town we had a beer tasting at the only brewpub in Canterbury. I am not a big fan of beer but it was interesting to taste the different brews and hear about how they are made.
BRIT BITS:
Cathedrals, abbeys, and churches
I will openly admit that while I have my own beliefs, I am not affiliated with any organized religion. But, I love seeing churches, big and small, from a cultural, societal, and artistic perspective. In Britain I was confused by why there were different types of Christian structures and what they were used for....
The biggest are the cathedrals and they are district offices for bishops as well as places of worship. On this trip I saw major cathedrals in Canterbury, Salisbury, and London but there are many scattered throughout England (as well as other countries). Building was often in the gothic style from the middle ages.
Abbeys were originally the communities of abbots and monks to isolate them from the lay community. In the 1500s England's Henry VIII had a rift with the previous church and had most of the abbeys destroyed. England has many of them. But, some were spared Henry's wrath because they were being used as worship places for everyday people. Those, thankfully are still intact and lovely, Bath Abbey included. I personally love the haunting atmosphere of the ruined abbeys as much as the vibrant scene in an active community.
And then you have the parish churches in villages and towns everywhere. These are more modest but just as beautiful in their own right.
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Gate to the cathedral grounds
Hello, cathedral
Hops beside the beer
Gate to the cathedral grounds