My Pilgrimage (Canterbury and Beyond)

"Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for to seke That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke." ~ Geoffrey Chaucer Imagine my English professor, Dr. Paxman, reciting that.  His voice came on the speakers on the bus in what sounded like an Irish accent.  Very funny. But I think what Geoff was trying to say is; thousands of people have made pilgrimages to Canterbury to worship at the site where Sir Thomas Becket was martyred, who was Archbishop of Canterbury in the 12th century.  Most of us know this because we were forced to read the Canterbury Tales in high school.  Now I found myself following in the footsteps of the millions before me, on my own pilgrimage to Canterbury. This is the entrance to the Canterbury Cathedral precinct.  We were greeted by a cute little old man, who I'm sure has shrunk several inches in the last decade or so.  He was our guide throughout the tour, which took two and a half hours.  Wow.   The cathedral was much like many others I've seen since being here. It has burned down and been rebuilt several times and in different periods different sections were added on or destroyed.  But the real reason people still travel to see this old building is to see the spot where Sir Thomas was killed.

And there it is.  A modern plaque to Thomas.  This is where he was stabbed to death.  There are no blood-stained tiles, because they were taken away by another archbishop who wanted to make some money out of them.  But it turns out the tiles weren't needed to get the church lots of visitors bearing gifts.   

Families with high status and mucho dinero were asked to help support the church with donations.  In return, the family was immortalized by having their crest added to the ceiling in a part of the cathedral.  This is only a small section, so you can imagine how much help the church has been receiving.

I wanted to ask our little old guide if this was where he lived.  I could just envision him in a baggy brown monk outfit feeding his stray cat pal in this doorway.  Whether it's him or not... I thought it was interesting that this cat bowl was just left around like this.

Harry Potter?  Yes it looks much like the corridors of Hogwarts, but we are still in the Canterbury Cathedral.  But these cloisters are designed much the same, using a late Gothic style.  Yup, that includes the scary faces.

My favorite thing about the Canterbury Cathedral was seeing Becket's ghost.  No photography is allowed in the crypt, otherwise I would have taken pictures of this part of our tour.  Our sweet little guide took us down the stone steps into the dark dungeon-like hallway.  Most of the area is roped off, because it is the oldest part of the church.  We were able to go into a room that had been walled up and concealed for many years.  It discovered not too long ago with a medieval fresco still partially intact.  It was awesome to see how brightly colored a cathedral like this would have been in those times.  

But what was really cool was going into the room where Thomas was originally buried.  A pillar beside his burial place has a big black mark on it, shaped like a man.  The pillar was scrubbed and scrubbed again, but the black mark would appear again no matter what they did.  The mark is no longer cleaned but has become part of the whole "attraction" of Canterbury Cathedral.  They call it Thomas Becket's ghost.  

After saying goodbye to our guide we headed over to the sweet shop which was just across the cobblestone street.  We got free suckers and then got some Cadbury eggs.

Then we got swindled out of our money at a tourist shop.  
Don't worry, we didn't actually buy the hats, as tempting as it was.

We piled back onto the bus.  Our driver, Tony, pointed out everything we passed.  He especially liked to point out the harvesting of the hops... over and over again.  But we all but pressed our faces up against the glass to get a good look at Dover Castle.  Built in the 12th century, this building has been of immense significance to England for a very long time.  William the Conqueror would have seen this same building as he and his army came blundering through this part of England on his way to his coronation.  Cool, huh?  

Many of the rooms were made to look as they did in the 12th century.  This would have been a part of the kitchen where the servants would make meals for their masters.  Jenny is making some bread for me.  I guess that makes her my servant.  :-)

Of course most of the things they ate back then would not have been very appealing to me.  A pig head, for example.  Alex might have enjoyed it, though.

How boring is this guy's job?  But he looks cool and added a little flare to the entrance of the castle.  

The knight wasn't the only medieval character to be roaming the old ruins.  A king and queen were in the throne room greeting us as we passed through.  The tapestries and other such things, although not true medieval artifacts, were made to look much like it had when it was in use.  I really liked that.

Cannons!

Look at the complicated network of stairs.  I almost got lost walking around and couldn't even imagine what it would be like to try to find your way at night with nothing but a torch.

The stairs lead to different rooms but also to long empty corridors.  By analyzing the small holes in the walls and then these bigger holes that have been transformed into windows, we figured out that these were once used for ventilation.  No AC back then.  
Every castle and manor had a place for Christian worship.

Our archer stances.

Our final destination for the day: the Cliff's of Dover!

Tony joked over the bus microphone that England beaches were nothing to brag about.  He wasn't just being modest- he was dead on.  The sand, or lack thereof, was really painful to walk on.  The huge stones kept getting stuck in my shoes, which I believe in this picture I'm dumping them out.  The salty water reeked of dead scallops and fish, and the evidence of the killings were strewn down the beach in a straight line, as if someone had purposely placed them all there in a perfect pattern.  Clearly the tide was in.

Other than our huge herd of 39 girls, the beach was deserted.  We each braved the freezing waters and dipped our toes in.  It was cold, but I think the beach in Edinburgh was colder- at least the day that I was there.  We saw several specs splashing out quite far into the channel.  Goggles, swim caps, but no wetsuit.  Those crazy channel swimmers!

But for a good while Alex and I just sat on a bench overlooking the ocean, eating our sandwiches.  Well, mine wasn't really a sandwich.  Living here I've been learning lessons of survival of the fittest- I had been the last one down to make my lunch and so it consisted of white bread and two slices of swiss cheese.  But the site was still beautiful.  I've read quite a few references to the white cliffs of dover, as I'm sure you have.  To actually be there and seeing the chalky landscape looming over a steely grey ocean... it was cool.

And finally... these are the Dover seagulls that stole my swiss cheese.