Canterbury (the original one)

In an attempt to see as much of this fair country (and Europe) as possible, we've started on a rigorous programme of weekend mini-breaks. It's all about the cheap rail ticket (love the student rail card) and, despite my conscious telling me NOOOOOOOOO, the occasional cheap airfare.

So, in May, we started things off locally, with a 48-hour sojourn in Canterbury. We didn't even know where it was, so after a quick check on the map (it's near Dover) we booked our train tickets and were off. We stayed in one of the highest rated hostels in the UK (Kipps Independent Hostel) which was fantastic! They have a bbq on Saturday nights which is only £3.50 for a hotdog in a bun, a hamburger, and a beer! Nice one. But, Canterbury's all about culture with a capital C so I really should stop talking about food! We started off with the big daddy, the cathedral. It's enormous! Just keeps going on and on and on and so much history everywhere you turn. I particularly liked the cloisters and some of the newer stained glass windows. While we were in there the Polish Radio Choir were practising for a concert they were performing later that night - it was some very dischordant, jangly operatic stuff and sounded incredible in that space. We were lucky to get a sneak peek!


After gorging on culture it was time to gorge on lunch (yes I know, back to food, inevitable really isn't it...). The main street was home to a food festival which gave us a delicious Thai lunch and then a vegan blueberry tart...mmmmmm.... Fully refueled it was back on the tourist trail. That led us to a river boat trip and the Canterbury Tales - the latter's this fantastically kitsch Madame Tussauds-esque trip through Chaucer's stories. We were really lucky that we were the only people in there and could prance around making fun as much as we liked! We also checked out some gardens, (other) old churches, and op-shops. The shopping was actually pretty successful - Adrian picked up this brilliant long grey suit and waistcoat at a huge discount and has since proceeded to make everyone else in Oxford look underdressed - a pretty hard task actually!

After a night out on the town checking out the local chavs (sorry Canterbury, but it's true), we spent most of next day at St Augustine's Abbey. It was one of the largest Benedictine abbeys in the UK, but was destroyed in the Reformation. We've been learning all about Henry VII's role in the history here, man, that guy was pretty incredible (in the literal sense of the word!). But, I have to say, the highlight of Sunday was coming across these guys:



Did you see the amount of greenery on their heads?! And that one particular guy in the second row - like an entire garden growing on top...

So, Canterbury mini-break gets a big thumbs up from me. I may even go so far as to say it's very nearly as pretty as Oxford! The rest of the photos are here.