My Canterbury Tales
My own personal Canterbury tales don’t include thirty-one pilgrims, and my goal wasn’t the shrine of Thomas Becket, though I did attend an Evensong service at the cathedral and walk by the site of his murder, but for the three years I lived in France I made my own yearly pilgrimage to Canterbury. It became the last stop before my family and I took the ferry from Dover back across the channel, and I made so many memories walking the ancient streets amidst centuries’ old buildings.
I didn’t know much about Canterbury when I arrived on my first visit. My family and I had spent the previous two days staying in a yurt in the Kentish countryside, and as we drove down the motorway toward our final destination before returning to the continent we told our own Canterbury tales. Chaucer’s famous work and the presence of the cathedral were all I knew, and as we drove into the city I loved discovering it was an ancient walled-city like York. I also loved how you could catch glimpses of the cathedral as you walked down the High Street.
We stayed near the city center at Greyfriars Lodge, and I immediately set out on foot with my daughter to explore. It was late afternoon and near closing time for all the shops, but we managed to catch the Oxfam Bookshop open, and while Oxfam Bookshops are always worthwhile places to shop, perhaps it is the presence of several universities and the cathedral that elevates the selection in this particular Oxfam. In fact, I found all the many charity shops in Canterbury to have an above average offering in the book department. I’d already been having a bit of a second-hand book-shopping spree on our holiday, and I added to our growing pile considerably in the two days we were here. I also discovered The Chaucer Bookshop, the loveliest shop with thousands of beautiful vintage and antiquarian books.
The bookshops and charity shops kept me busy, but I also always took time to stroll and sit in Westgate Gardens. There are beautiful flowers along the River Stour and a good view of Westgate Towers, and you can’t help but notice the famous plane tree with a trunk nine meters round. It is truly magnificent and around 200-years-old. It’s a good place to sit and eat a pasty and a sausage roll, mine and my daughter’s dinner of choice one night, respectively.
Speaking of food, there are, of course, all kinds of different dining options in Canterbury. One particular restaurant always caught my eye, though I never ate there. It was a Mexican restaurant with a French name in England, and that incongruous combination always made my daughter and I laugh and piqued my interest. A quick Google tells me it has to do with the French colonial past in Mexico as well as the Spanish. I always forget about that bit of history and only think of the Spanish as being there.
On my last Canterbury pilgrimage in 2020, my daughter and I ate lunch at another place that caught my eye on previous trips, Tiny Tim’s Tearoom. Canterbury claims many associations with Charles Dickens, both real and apocryphal, and you can see several plaques around the city boasting their connection to the Victorian author. We visited Rochester just a few days previously, so I was in no position to resist another Dickens’ inspired eatery. Since we were in the midst of the pandemic, I hadn’t been to a restaurant in many months. We sat outside in the courtyard for health and safety reasons, and in those fearful and uncertain times, our combined lunch and afternoon tea were such a pleasurable treat. Fittingly enough, the tearoom is located in a building built in the 1600s and part of the route pilgrims would take to the cathedral and the shrine to Thomas Becket.
I just love Canterbury, and if you’re planning a trip to London but fancy a taste of a smaller English city, the hour and a half train ride would be worth it for a peaceful day in this historic city.
For more pictures you can always check out the Picture Gallery!