Kyran and Mercedes Findlater travel the world: London to Canterbury

Hello out there and welcome to another Blog as Kyran and I travel the world!

This blog is the beginning of our adventure back to England for a family wedding and our adventures in the greater London area.

So lets get to it!

Above: So Just so that you all have the bigger picture this map shows the general plan we had when setting out to see greater London/South England.

First up our Brief time in central London:

We left Canada from Calgary at approximately 7pm on Thursday the 12th of May and arrived in London Heathrow on Friday the 13th at about 10am. The flight time was about 9 hours and we got about 3 hours sleep in total!

We flew with Air Canada. I would not recommend them again. As most of you know we are vegan and despite months of warning they failed to provide us with vegan meals, which most other airlines do a good job of.

So arriving in London tired and hungry we set off to meet the Bride and Groom to be and the first order of business was food and sleep, and yes in that order!

Below: This is what is considered a salad in central London, and I reckon the serving size could have been bigger! It was tasty though so i'll give them that! This was at the Rose pub.

After a quick siesta it was off to dinner with the rest of the family that had made the trip from Australia.

Then came the big day! The bride was off to get ready and we stayed with the groom and my cute little nephew. The only trouble was that the wedding wasn't till 3 pm so we had to keep busy until the big event! We went for a bike ride and as it turned out we made it all the way from the Shard to the Greenwich Observatory and back again, via the Cutty Sark.
(Sorry map not accurate, exact route is unknown)

Here is some of what we saw along our ride:

James Wolfe - The Victor of Quebec. A monument erected in his honour at the Greenwich Observatory. Major General James Wolfe was the man in charge of a group of British soldiers sent up a river to siege the French army in Quebec, Canada, during 1759. His troops managed to defeat the French army, and drove the French out of Canada. Wolfe died later in the year though, from three musket shots in the Battle for the Plains of Abraham.

The Cutty Sark is one of the last "Clippers" built, and it was launched in 1869. The original goal was to trade Tea to China through the Suez Canal, and later traded Wool from Australia. It held the fastest record for trading to/from Australia for 10 years!

Cycling up the hill to the Greenwich Observatory. Our legs got a good work out!

Some random boats in the canals we saw as we rode around Southwark, Southeast London.

There is an old street sign in my Brother's apartment (or "Flat" as the British call them) which bears the Findlater name. Findlater's Corner was in Southwark, and was named after Findlater's the wine merchants, which was just round the corner from the sign. The shop is now called Oddbins.

A little info on the wedding! The main reason we were in the UK was for Kyran's brother's wedding. Hamish and Catherine tied the knot at about 3:45pm at 2 Temple Place, in the city of Westminster, London. The venue was great, the people were great, and it was all very fun. Poor Mercedes took one for the team and kept little Hector entertained and out of the room because he was feeling like crying a lot. Therefore she missed most of the wedding unfortunately. Kyran still had a jolly good time catching up with family!

With all the family occasions taken care of we move on the the second part of our journey.
Sunday afternoon after returning Hector to his rightful owners we headed back to Heathrow Airport to the Europcar rental place to pick up a car (not the one we booked, Kyran got upsold like a noob and we paid 300% of the original price we were expecting). It's a Vauxhall (Aka - Chevrolet, aka - Holden) Insignia which was a Diesel automatic and has made for a reasonable journey so far!)

This is the route we took from Heathrow Airport car hire place to Canterbury. It took us a few hours, and we got to Canterbury too late to get into the Cathedral. We found a park in the town and walked to find the Cathedral.

We did strike it lucky in that as we arrived to the cathedral there seemed to be some sort of concert on so we were able to get into the Cathedral grounds and at least take a few good photos.

The usual Curios and Oddities were to be seen as we walked along the streets.

This Shop window was very British!

Canterbury Cathederal:

Above: Ruins of an old Norman infirmary on the grounds of the Cathedral.

Left: More ruins of the Norman infirmary, with some nice arches.

A lofty panorama of the Cathedral. There was a line of people trying to enter for some kind of Christian-rock concert. Have to fund that construction/restoration (seen on the right) somehow!

Fun Facts: The Cathedral acts as the ending point of the Via Francigena which is an 1800km Pilgrim trail spanning from Canterbury, United Kingdom, to Rome (to the Vatican). See the map below.

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England.
Thomas Becket was Archbishop of Canterbury from 1162 until his murder in 1170 by King Henry the second's knights.
We mention this as it was in this very cathedral that he was murdered at the altar.
The is venerated as a saint and martyr by both the Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion. He engaged in conflict with Henry II, King of England over the rights and privileges of the Church and was murdered by followers of the king in Canterbury Cathedral. Soon after his death, he was canonised by Pope Alexander III. and you can see many homages to him in and around Canterbury and other historic sites in England.
(You will hear more about him in future blogs)

The cathedral has been designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the nearby St Augustine's Abbey and St Martins Church. These places represent the introduction of Christianity to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom.

Left: View of the back of the Cathedral.

As we went in search of some cheeky Nandos chips, we came across this interesting artwork near the Canterbury Theatre known as Bulkhead. The mask is the work of sculptor Rick Kirby and arrived in the city as part of a sculpture festival called Blok. It was so popular that Canterbury council bought it and had it installed by the old theatre’s forecourt. There was also a nice bridge, pictured.

This brings us to the end of the Canterbury Cathedral part of the blog. The grounds were pleasant and the town of Canterbury itself was nice enough. It seemed a bit crowded but that may have just been all the tourists and the fact there was a giant concert going on in the cathedral.

As we left Canterbury, we headed for Dover but then realized that it might be cheaper to stay at a hotel outside of Dover, and we changed course for Folkestone - making us take some back country roads through Lydden. It was a cute country town area, with a little church we passed and took some pictures of. See below!

St Mary's, Lydden, Kent

There were many winding country roads, some with hedges right up on each side of the narrow farm roads, causing very narrow winding passages that were pretty dangerous sometimes with oncoming traffic.