Europe Day 6: Bath to Canterbury

Today we had to get from one side of the country to the other.  Now back home that would be a 4 day journey.  Here it was only about 3 and a bit hours, but it still meant a light breakfast and a good bit of driving.

There’s not much one can say about the driving part of this drive, apart from it involved lovely scenery, passing through birch forests and green pastures, spotting castles in the distance, a stop near Reading for Costa coffee and a Wi-Fi fix, passing towns such as Bagshot and lots of ABBA.

We arrived in Canterbury where we found parking a bit of a challenge, but we got a spot under a fortified watch tower in the city wall (that just feels strange typing that).  We made our way through the medieval streets to the Cathedral Gates where we met up with Ken, who had trained down from London, as well as Steve and Lorraine who I hadn't seen since their visit to Australia some 25 years previous.  It was so lovely to see their familiar smiling faces.  They took us to The Parrot, one of the oldest pubs in Canterbury; everyone chatted, drank Guinness and ciders and ate very, very well.

Now me, I ate far too well, going for the Bishop’s Mitre; this burger was a tower of a burger, with two beef patties separated by a pile of pulled pork and topped with onion rings and a chunky pickle.  It was really quite good.
After lunch, Ken and I visited the Cathedral and Michelle and Sharon stayed on in the pub then walked around town with Steve and Lorraine.

The Canterbury Cathedral is certainly very impressive, and I spent close to 2 hours walking around soaking up the history and majesty.

We all met up again at the Cathedral Gate where I heard about Michelle’s tour of the town.  I felt like I had missed out, so Lorraine and Steve took us on a driving tour so I could catch most of the sights as well.  Canterbury is certainly a very lovely city.

We then drove off through the county side to Chilham as it is a renowned well preserved example of a medieval town; and also scones.

The scones at Shelley’s Tea Rooms were amongst the best I’d had ever.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in the pub chatting and enjoying cider.
A huge thanks to Lorraine and Steve for a great pub lunch in Canterbury.  It was lovely to see you both again.

And a big, big thankyou to Shaz for being our tour guide and driving us around half of England to such beautiful places.

And here is the day in picture highlights