Just passing through - Canterbury

After a month in Ireland I return to London, where my parents wait for me with the camper (they have been touring the United Kingdom for about a month), and together we head for France and then on to Spain. During the journey, in the UK we drive around the towns, including lovely Canterbury, before taking the ferry to Calais (France).

Canterbury is charmingly medieval as ever, with its tidy little streets, timber-framed houses, colourful flowers and festive air. We visit the centre (and its shops too). The cathedral, Christ Church, mother church of the realm, is stunning as always. Unfortunately we have to leave for Dover and cannot make a detour beyond the walls to the ruins of the Augustinian abbey, founded by St Augustine in 598, the second in Europe after Montecassino. Unfortunately only the ruins of the keep are what remains of the Norman castle, once set against the eastern side of the walls.

Here is a little historical background: << Founded by the Romans as a military and commercial centre on the main road from Dover to London, from 560 the capital of the Saxon kingdom of Kent, then called Cantwarabyryg, and in 597 the seat of the first Christian diocese of Great Britain, founded by St Augustine. To honour the growing importance of Canterbury as a centre of Christianity, the first Norman archbishop, Lanfranc, in 1070 ordered a new cathedral to be built on the ruins of an Anglo-Saxon church. The building was enlarged and rebuilt several times and consequently contains examples of all the medieval architectural styles.

Besides being the home of Archbishop Sigeric, to whom the 'invention' of the Via Francigena/Romea, the pilgrimage to Rome, is owed, its name and fame became worldwide because of the murder of another archbishop, Thomas Becket in 1173, which took place within the walls of the Gothic cathedral after a famous conspiracy hatched by Henry II and carried out by four of his knights over a dispute about the independence of the English Church. Becket's killing made the city a pilgrimage destination and a centre of primary importance for the world >>