We got up at 5:30, had a quick breakfast downstairs then took the taxi to the airport. We go there at 6:50 for an 8:50 flight so hoped that would be enough time, not having any idea of how crowded this airport was. Dan’s status allowed us to jump lines and that helped, but even without that we probably would have been fine.

A couple of things about this airport experience that were different for us:

1. We had to check a bag. When we’d checked in to get our boarding passes on Thursday, we were notified by British Airlines that anyone flying into UK from a list of countries, of which Turkey was one, would not be able to carry on laptops and tablets, among other things. We had 4 of them between us. So Thursday night we had to change our packing strategy, move a bunch of stuff around the 2-each carry-on bags we usually have, so that one of the roller bags would be checked with all the technology in it. We hate checking baggage and have never done it before on one of these trips. Because of Dan’s status, we were taken right away at the British Airlines counter to check it in, so that was good. And coming out the other end, it didn’t take all that long to get it either in Heathrow.
2. Three security checks: one when we first got there, right at the entrance to the airport, a second standard one to get into the gate area, and a 3rd very detailed one at the gate.

Lots of people are buried here, just like in Westminster Abbey, although that has many more big names. We recognized very few here. However, Canterbury is most famous for being the place where Thomas Becket was murdered in 1170 by followers of Henry II who believed that’s what the King intended. Thomas was Archbishop of Canterbury at the time, and he and the King were in conflict over the rights and privileges of the Church. Thomas as canonized soon after his death, and the Cathedral became a pilgrimage spot immediately after, and remains one today.

There were lots of tombs here, not all of them clearly marked; the docent mentioned above who we spent some time with said there’s a definite lack in information and they are working on that. It’s still a working church with regular services. At any rate, I liked the columns on the sides of this one.

We left here around 4pm. We walked around the city a bit (at this point I would normally refer to it as a town, but I was schooled that it was a city because there’s a cathedral; a town doesn’t have one, so I’m self-correcting…) and it was adorable. There were several good places to eat so we decided to stay a bit longer and have dinner here. We went back to the grocery store and picked up some bottled water to have in the car as we drive around this week, then went in search of a place to park since we were 45 minutes over the 90 minute maximum stated on the signs. More adventures in driving on the left took us to a side road where there was free and unlimited street parking, about .5 mile out. As we walked back to the city center, we walked by St. Augustine’s Abbey, the ruins from his original post built in 597. We were just going to look from the outside, which is the photo I took below, until we saw a sign referencing English Heritage, whose membership could get you into many things for one price. A huge museum pass. We went in to see if we could find out more, and the woman there was extremely informative (including being the one who taught me the distinction between a town and a city). Short version: Dover Castle, where we would be going the next day, was on the list, and she mapped out many others that we could check out easily on our path throughout the week. It made complete sense to do it, so we bought the membership there and went on into the Abbey, which we were otherwise going to pass. My joke that this trip was a “castle-hop” is going to manifest in a very real way. We were oddly grateful to learn the Cathedral wasn’t on it since we’d just paid 30 pounds to get into that!

There was quite a complex here over a period of time, complete with church, crypts, schools, residence for the monks. All of it was destroyed in the 1500’s when Henry VII had all of the monasteries in England destroyed because he believe they were corrupt institutions which represented much of what was wrong with the Catholics, as he created his own Church, which of course is the Church of England or Anglican Church today.

We stayed about 30 minutes and continued our walk back into the city. We meandered the adorable streets for awhile before heading to dinner.

This place claimed to have “authentic British food” and was #9 of 247 places to eat in Canterbury on TripAdvisor. They also had a very reasonably priced tasting menu, but in the end we decided to order off the regular menu and are glad we did.

Oh yea, and June 30 was our wedding anniversary :)