The travels of Tim and Megan: Canterbury

Last weekend was a long weekend in England - we had Monday off to signal the end of summer and almost like clockwork, the weather turned rubbish on Tuesday morning. Monday was the last decent day. Ironically, the end of summer is the only efficient thing in Britain.

On Saturday (29 August) we caught the train out to Canterbury in Kent, south-east England. Canterbury is a lovely little town, dominated by the world famous Canterbury Cathedral. On arrival we wandered through the town centre and found a great cafe where we had brunch. Tim got the All Day Breakfast consisting of bacon, eggs, sausage, tomatoes, beans, toast and probably a dozen other things all for about 20 pence.

Then we visited the Cathedral - would have been rude if we didn't. Canterbury has been a place of Christian worship for almost 1,700 years. When the city, built by the Romans, became the capital of the Saxon kingdom of Kent, it was there during the late 6th century that St Augustine and his fellow missionaries worked to bring Christianity back to England. Four centuries later, a Benedictine monastery was founded there. St Thomas Becket was canonized three years after he was murdered inside the cathedral by four knights in 1170. From the outset, pilgrims began flocking to his tomb in the Cathedral. Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales", written during the Middle Ages, mentions these people from many different walks of life who came to worship at the Cathedral.

We had a guided tour of the Cathedral, led by a very knowledgeable man, who had a particular passion for stained-glass windows. The tour was brilliant and included the grounds outside the Cathedral, the priory and chapter house and the magnificent quire inside the Cathedral. The highlight was seeing the memorial on the spot where Thomas Becket was murdered (where the Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope John Paul II knelt in prayer together in the 1980s).

After the tour, we checked out some of the shops down the main street (the shops in little English towns are always fun, as you tend to get less of the chain stores and more of the one-off random shops). We also went on a half hour boat tour down the River Stour past the Old Weavers pub, with Canterbury Historic River Tours (which we recommend!). We had a really good tour guide/boat rower, who made the tour really enjoyable.

We had another lovely walk through town and then settled down in a pub to watch Manchester United v Arsenal. Great game, the good guys dominated all over the park, our Russian scored a cracking goal, but the bad guys won. That's football. Solid day out, if you're over this way, definitely check it out. Oh also, we forgot to take our camera, so the photos below are not our photos, we are not breaching copyright etc etc, they are straight off Google. You could probably tell anyway; they're crap.

Ka kite children