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FOLLOWING CHAUCER - July 9, 2006

Today we left Medway, toured Canterbury - Cathedral and Abbey (was the Augustine who founded these places really THE Augustine - the one of the Confessions?), and then came on in to Margate.  Yes, fish and chips were on the supper menu!

Soon these trip logs will be illustrated by selected photographs I’ve been taking.  So, even if you’ve already read earlier ones, as soon as you see photos anywhere, check out the older entries - look for the “Update - photos” and you’ll know.

UPDATED with photos…..

July 9, 2006

We were lazy this morning…..here’s a picture of the hostel, which is in an old “oast house” that was used for drying the hops that were grown in the area.  There are a lot of these scattered over the countryside nearby.
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We ate breakfast and left about 10:00, headed for Canterbury.  Got thoroughly lost trying to get out of town, back and forth and around in circles, finally achieving the proper A-road and headed along the pilgrim trail so publicized by Chaucer.

The cathedral is reputed to have been founded by Augustine, but it’s grown considerably since that time…..the place is monumentally huge, with fabulous buildings on all sides, wonderful vaults, columns, chapels, tombs, etc.  What do you think?
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And this is the side aisle!!  I also got a shot of the nave—here it is:
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We enjoyed walking the streets nearby, with buildings dating back 500 years and more.  We aren’t used to that at all in the States.  I took photos, but none of them are resized for here yet.

We also visited Augustine’s Abbey, which had an excellent audio tour, explaining the founding, growth and renovation of the abbey, its suppression and destruction during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries, and then its rediscovery and rescue in the 19th and 20th centuries. 

After leaving Canterbury, we drove straight on to Margate, the 18th and early 19th century seaside resort of choice for the rich and royal of London.  It’s been a long decline, but Margate is on its way back – when the high-speed train to London is complete in another couple of years or so, commuters can get home in an hour, and property prices are already on the rise.  The 1791 Royal Sea Bathing Hospital is being renovated into 400 luxury flats, including penthouses that will sell for a million pounds.  Lots of other properties are also being bought up for development when things (hopefully) zoom, with the coming of England’s “bullet train”. 

Here are photos of the front of our hostel in Margate - one of three privately owned Youth Hostels in the UK - and also our room, and the view out the window.
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We could hear the waves on the sand when we woke up in the night…..it was lovely!

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