Me in the Cathedral

Hello! We had a whole group excursion to Dover and Canterbury today. Absolutely amazing. I am running out of words to describe things over here because they are all so great. It seems like every day the stuff I see and do gets more interesting and more awesome. So sorry if I repeat adjectives or get into a little hyperbole, its just not easy to write about this stuff because i like it all so much. The title of the post comes from the play we read about Canterbury Cathedral called "Murder in the Cathedral".

I want to mention something before I get into my super duper cool day. I want to thank everyone for sending all the e-mails, facebook messages, snail mail, whatever. Every little e-mail or small facebook message brings a smile to my face so thanks. Also, just thanks for reading. I wanted to do the blog originally for mostly personal reasons (I have a bad memory sometimes and posterity's sake) but the fact that all you people read it and tell me you like it makes me feel good. I put some effort into it so its nice that people enjoy reading it.

Anyway! Onto much more interesting things, like the fact that I saw France today (more on that in a second). The bus left at 7:30 and it was a 2 hr drive to Dover. I read the whole time. I'm pretty sure everyone else slept at least for a little bit (most for the entire ride). For those who don't know, Dover is southeast of London and is, as far as I know, the closest English town to the continent. It is on the English Channel and the Chunnel (the tunnel under the channel) runs very near to it. We arrived there and got our first glimpse of the Channel. Just stupendous with the morning winter sun low in the sky. Dover is very famous for its white chalk cliffs. There are songs and poems about them. I did not get an up close view of them while I was there though. We went to Dover Castle which is on one of the cliffs above the water. It was pretty windy and the air was crisp. It reminded me a lot of spring back home. Where its sunny in the morning but you can still feel a little bit of the winter bite. Inside the castle complex is the Wartime Tunnels. This was our first stop.

The wartime tunnels were first created during the Napoleonic era. They were constructed to house soldiers. Dover was considered a front line village because of the fear of invasion by Napoleon so they needed soldiers there. The tunnels were abandoned until WWII when they were greatly expanded. Dover became a front line town because of fear of invasion yet again. The tunnels provided a base of operations for the evacuation of Dunkirk in 1942. That operation was called Dynamo and ended up rescuing 363,000 English, French, and Belgian troops from the advancing German army. It is considered a miracle of organization (the commanding officer originally thought he could save around 13,000 troops). The tunnels also had a hospital and were an area that the people of Dover could go to during air raids. Later, the tunnels were retrofitted to be a bomb shelter during the Cold War. Now, they are a tourist attraction which is fine. We walked through the area that was the hospital. They had speakers and a fake operation going on and stuff. It was a cool way of doing it, instead of having the guide talk. Then we went down stairs (there are actually three levels of tunnels, 3.5 miles in total) and saw the administration area where people worked the phones and control rooms. It was really interesting. I had never heard of the evacuation of Dunkirk or that Dover was really that much under attack.

After the tunnels, we breathed fresh air again and had some free time to explore the castle. I should mention that Vanessa forgot to charge her camera batteries and I only had my disposables so no photos until I can scan in my disposable pictures, which I have done now. We walked up to some overlooks of the Channel (me with Channel behind picture 1) and we could see France on the other side. That was really cool. I have never seen the European continent before. There were also overviews of the city of Dover (Vanessa lounging on the picnic table picture 2). We walked up to the castle and went to the top of it (picture 3). Some really good views were there of the channel, France, and the city of Dover (picture 4 is looking down on Pharos Lighthouse and St. Mary-in-Castro). The next stop on our walk around the castle grounds was the Pharos lighthouse. This was a lighthouse built during by the Romans. Its the only extent Roman lighthouse and the tallest remaining Roman structure in Britain. Right next to it is St. Mary-in-Castro, a church built by the Saxons (so around 1000 ad). Churches, I love 'em. After that, it was back to the bus and off to Canterbury.

Canterbury is another one of those English towns with narrow streets and lots of shops and a famous cathedral (picture 7). We entered into the Cathedral grounds through this awesome stone arch thing (picture 5). This town is special though because their cathedral is REALLY famous as opposed to just famous. As I have recounted before, Thomas à Becket was murdered here by four knights in 1170 after he had a few disagreements with Henry II. A shrine was erected and miracles started happening to people who came to the shrine. Word spread and soon tons of pilgrims came from all over to worship there (Canterbury Tales). Because of those pilgrims (and the money they left) the Cathedral became very wealthy and was able to add on to make a magnificent Gothic cathedral in the 1400s. The tallest part is the Bell Harry Tower at around 100 meters high. A spot in the cathedral is called the Martyrdom and it is where Becket was killed. He was hit so strongly on the head that a piece of the sword got broken off. It was put in an altar but the altar was destroyed by the puritans. The puritans destroyed a bunch of stuff. One puritan wrote in his journal that he would ride his horse around the cathedral and shot the stained glass windows as target practice. Stupid. The stained glass that is left is stunning however. They also destroyed the shrine to Becket. It was reportedly covered in gold and jewels and when they destroyed it, it took 23 ox carts to carry all the precious metal and stuff away. Now, instead of a shrine, there is a candle that is always burning where the shrine used to be. I learned all of this on the tour we took. I learned more but I don't want to bore people and this way, you have to go there yourself to learn all the history.

Actually, two more things to add. In the nave (where the people sit, picture 6), it is constructed in a perpendicular Gothic style. That is, it is really tall and skinny. They did this so that your eyes would follow the tall columns up to the ceiling along with your thoughts and prayers. I loved this nave. It was my favorite part of the building. We also saw the cloisters where Benedictine monks used to be.

We had free time after our tour was over for about 90 minutes. I whipped out my trusty guidebook and saw 4 places that I wanted to visit. The problem was that they were scattered basically all over the town. I realized that I was going to have to walk fast if I wanted to visit all of them. So I did. First stop was St. Augustine's Abbey. This was the abbey that Augustine constructed when he arrived in England. It was the finest (and only, haha) abbey in Britain at the time. All that's left now is some crumbled towers and buildings. I did not get to see them, however, because it was closed. Closed on a Saturday at 14:30? Weird. Next up was St. Martin's Church (picture 8). Part of the church was constructed around the time of Augustine. This is where he preached until his Abbey was built. It is also where the King of Kent was baptized by Augustine, thus converting everyone in Kent to Christianity. It was a charming church. Bits and pieces were added on to it throughout the years but its still small and quaint. There is a cemetery out in front of it with a ton of gravestones (that happens at a 1500 year old church I suppose).

The third destination on my magical mystery tour of Canterbury was Greyfriars (hard to see the river but still there, picture 9). It was built in 1267 over (yes, over) the river that runs through Canterbury. There are a whole bunch of gardens surrounding it. Very pretty. The building was England's first Franciscan Friary. I will admit that I did linger here long due to time constraints but it was a really pretty area. The last stop was Canterbury Castle (picture 10). Built by the Normans, it is 1000 years old and looks it. Parts of it are crumbling but it is still really cool. It reminded me of limestone or something because all the bricks are in rows that aren't totally straight and they are yellowish whitish. It was very stark looking. Not a lot of decoration or really anything on the outside other than little windows. Big contrast from the Cathedral. After the castle, I walked along the wall that surrounds the city. I passed by a park with a playground that was a maze with a tower in the middle (picture 11). The walls were tall enough for parents to see over but short enough for kids to think that they could hide from them. I bought a hot chocolate and got on the bus. The hot chocolate was the first thing I have drank that wasn't water for at least a week. No kidding. Sounds sad but its not. We drove back to Metrogate, I had dinner and here I am.

I saw so many cool places today. I really am a lucky guy. My favorite things today were the English Channel, Canterbury Cathedral and St. Martin's Church in case you were wondering. Church tomorrow and then I don't know what. As usual, I will think of something :-)

Cheers!