Canterbury, 14-15 August 2010

The next event I went to was Dirty Dancing - the Show. This was a girls night, for some reason Rob wasn't keen to go? The show was really well done and the guy playing Johnny was ripped, but the dancing just wasn't up to Patrick and Jennifer's performance...

Since it was really the last month of summer, we decided to do a couple of weekends away before summer ended. The first weekend we decided to go to Canterbury, our home-province's namesake. Of course Canterbury was made famous by the martyrdom of Thomas Beckett, which resulted in pilgrimages to Canterbury, and Chaucer writing The Canterbury Tales. The city is very pretty in parts. They still have the medieval gates to the city.

A lot of the shops are very quaint, we loved this one...

So many retain their medieval characteristics. This is known as a weaver's loft, the upper stories were built out over the street so they'd have more room and they put big windows in so they'd have lots of light for their weaving.

We had a good look around the streets of Canterbury and did a walking tour which was really good. There was a little "hospital" that we stumbled upon ourselves, where pilgrims used to stay, and this is pretty much original.
We also did the touristy thing, "The Canterbury Tales", which is a corny attraction where they have recreated the Tales with "authentic medievil smells and sounds". Of course the piece de resistance is the Christchurch Cathedral.

You can't really get the scale of the place in a picture, it is absolutely massive.

The relic of Thomas Beckett was destroyed by order of King Henry VIII, which meant that the stream of pilgrims dried up. Now the site where it was is marked by a lit candle. There is also this piece of art (above) marking the site where he was murdered. The history is fascinating and there is a huge amount of art in numerous stained glass windows telling the story.

The outside is just as fascinating as the inside. This is the monks' old herb garden and quarters.

We also managed to stumble across a Roman museum - after Canterbury was bombed in the war, it uncovered an ancient Roman house. They have preserved the amazing mosaic floors and all the bits and pieces they found along with the house layout. It was a bit of an unexpected treat.

All in all Canterbury was a worthwhile place to visit. The B & B we stayed in was very cute also, but it is a lot more touristy than we expected and not cheap.