July 15 (Wednesday) – Canterbury

Today was a train ride to Canterbury to see the cathedral, abbey, and anything else that caught our interest.

The walk from the train station to town went through the medieval gate in the old city wall.

The main street through town was very crowded with tourists, locals, and university students.

and was lined with lovely, very old buildings including a number of the original classical Tudor half timbered buildings.

The public library and museum on the main street was particularly pretty.

There were the usual local pubs (in very old buildings) with the window boxes full of flowers. 

The University of Kent was having its graduation ceremony at Canterbury Cathedral.  Fortunately this allowed for great people watching with lots of young people walking the streets and the cathedral in their caps and gowns.  Unfortunately, the greater part of the cathedral was closed to tourists because of the celebration. There was a very long line of friends and families waiting to enter the cathedral for the service.

Students waiting the cloisters for the service to begin

We were fortunate to have good weather that enabled us to get some good pictures. 

However, we did see a fair amount of the cathedral including the cloisters...

some ancient medieval features...

the Crypt...


In the Crypt

and the spot in the cathedral where Thomas à Becket was murdered (site of an eternal flame). 

The parts of the cathedral and ceiling that we could see were spectacular...

We have really enjoyed the stained glass windows in the cathedrals.

The cathedral has some lovely gardens...

that included ruins of the city wall.

After touring the cathedral we headed off to the ruins of St. Augustine’s Abbey.  Much of the abbey was razed by Henry VIII during the dissolution of the Catholic Church in England. 

Then it was off to find the old Medieval City Wall.  While interesting, it had been restored recently so it seemed to be just a relatively new, really long, raised, pedestrian walk with occasional half round towers with arrow slits. 

Rebuilt old city wall

So we headed back through more interesting sections (i.e. old sections) of town...

to the main drag (variously named St. Peters Street, High Street, The Parade and St. George’s Street, depending on where you are on the dozen or so blocks through the old section of town).  We stopped for milk shakes at the Gourmet Burger Kitchen, best chocolate shakes ever, with little chunks of chocolate chips in it.  Unfortunately, the chocolate shake stuff hadn't been delivered so we settled on peanut butter shakes and Oreo shakes, also very good.

Then it was the long train ride back to London and dinner near the hotel.