The city centre of Canterbury is surrounded by an ancient wall. All the buildings have an old feeling, even if they have a Starbucks in them. If you look closely, there's one just to the right of the this arch that leads to the cathedral.
The cathedral is spectacular. Soaring spires, flying butresses, detailed statuary and intricate details in the masonry; it's a feast for the eyes. The very air inside has an aged feel to it, the ambience is quite amazing.
The stained glass windows are gorgeous. Of course, no photo could do them justice, but I've put my modest attempts on display here.
These two were favourites of Brianne and me. They're quite recent compared to the other windows, the originals having been blown out during The Blitz. They were redone after WWII by a Jewish Hungarian immigrant who had escaped the deathcamps and come to England. His family had not been so fortunate. The photo below is of the window entitled "Salvation," and if you look to the right and left of the central figures of angels appearing to a kneeling prisoner, you can see jail doors flung open. What I found was really interesting when a guide pointed it out was that on the left-hand door there is depicted is a round padlock - which you may be able to see - and that if you looked very carefully at the padlock you could see that the keyhole was in the shape of a swastika; a very powerful thematic choice for the artisan to make, I thought.
Below you can see a picture of the sculpture which marks the spot where Thomas Beckett was murdered.
This succession of photos gives you a zoom,ing-in glimpse of looking straight up into a hundred foot spire.
After our time in the cathedral we wandered around some of the side streets and found a great Italian cafe to have a sandwich for lunch. We also found a shop dedicated to Winne-the-Pooh (!) and an ecclectic clothing store that Brianne vividly remembered visiting the last time she was in Canterbury with her school. We wandered along to find the ruins of Canterbury castle, which is really just a shell of the building it was in ancient times. Seriously, it would have been a garden shed compared to the Tower of London. One thing that tickled our fancy was that marking of a "Well-shaft" on the posted diagram of the ruin outside, and after reading it both B and I sang "SHAFT!" a la the classic TV theme . . . complete with jazz hands. We giggled on and off for the rest of the day over that one. Below is a picture of the hole in the ground that inspired us, and below that a view of the ruin from inside a spiral staircase window.
We finished off the day with a leisurely boat tour of a main causeway in Canterbury, a picture of which you can see above. The guide was very friendly with a dry wit. We saw some minor points of interests with a nice little story behind them, but the highlight really was steering the boat past a mama duck and her dozen little ducklings. Couldn't get a good enough picture of them, but they were so adorable we wanted to scoop one up and take it home in B's purse. After that we made our way back to the bus stop and trundled home, the end of a wonderful day.
We look forward to more daytrips in the future - to Leeds Castle, or Stratford-upon-Avon, or even the beach in Brighton!
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