Canterbury and Leeds Castle

First of all, can I say that May in England is gorgeous???? And hot. It has been ridiculously hot here. It's probably not that warm, but compared to what we're used to, it feels very toasty. Caitlin and I went out to sit around on the downs a couple days ago and I definitely incurred a bit of a sunburn, next time I'm at the grocery store I'm buying sunscreen. This cannot happen again. But year the past week or two have been filled with picnics, sunshine, late sunsets and wandering around. If not for all those pesky papers, it would be paradise.

Yesterday we had another Sussex-organized day trip to Canterbury and Leeds Castle. I think it was one of my favorite day trips so far but that might simply be because of the glorious weather. Who knows if Warwick Castle or something was fabulously sunny and warm, it might have been at the top of my list. Weather changes everything.

It was the typical start; bus leaving at 8:30, get to Canterbury at 10:30. Canterbury is a cute little town (as all little English towns seem to be) with a lot of old buildings, winding little streets, a river/canal/thing (more common themes of English towns), plus the Canterbury Cathedral, seat of the Anglican religion. Now I don't remember a lot of the dates of when other cathedral's I've been to were built but I have this feeling that Canterbury Cathedral is one of, if not the, oldest. Thomas Becket was murdered in the Cathedral in 1170 but the first church in that spot was built sometime in the 7th or 8th century. And there were a lot of old paintings and artifacts hanging around the cathedral as well. It was incredible to walk around the church and see where all the stones have been worn down but centuries of use. There was definitely an air of history and age in the space that I found really cool. Also, it was nice not to be in a Catholic cathedral. I don't know why, I have nothing against the Catholics and I have thoroughly enjoyed many of their cathedrals, but seeing something different (although there wasn't much in the interior of the church that would really show any sort of difference) was nice. There were a couple cool specifics to the church- there is a candle burning in the spot where there was once a shrine to Thomas Becket and where his body lay until King Henry VIII burned it down, King Henry IV and Edward Plantagenet have tombs there, there was a cool Martyrdom chapel dedicated to Becket, and the crypt underneath (sadly no pictures allowed) was dark and kind of spooky but cool- plus it housed the Cathedral's treasury; gold and silver are always fun.

After spending about an hour wandering around this massive cathedral, we went out and explored the beautiful grounds, grabbed lunch at some cafe, and walked around Canterbury some more. There were a lot of parks by the river to sit in and bask in the beautiful weather (which we did). The only thing I found a bit odd about Canterbury was some of the people wandering around. Now I don't know if it was the town or just the nice weather that brought these people out, but I definitely saw the highest concentration of stereotypical English thug types. Lots of skinny, pasty, shirtless men with dangling nipple rings and bad teeth and some scary looking women in too tight clothes with their bra straps hanging out who also looked like they hve ben in their fair share of fights. But if you ignored these strange fellows, the city was beautiful.

At about 2 we got back on the coach and drove another hour to Leeds Castle. Leeds Castle was much different than Warwick Castle in that it seemed to be much more of a luxurious pleasure castle than one actually used for defense. It was established in the 12th century or so and went through royalty (Henry VIII, among others, used this castle) and then went into private ownership with the last private owner being Lady Bastile who died in like the 70's or 80's. She requested in her will that after her death the castle still be used as a working castle so there are still conferences and meetings and weddings and stuff held here. In fact in the 70's there was actually a meeting at Leeds Castle between Anwar Sadat and Moshe Dayan before the Camp David Accords.

The grounds of the castle were huge, and gorgeous, and it took a while for us to actually get to the castle (walking through the duckery on the way). We took another hour to do the tour through the castle. There were some rooms that were redone in the way it would have been while royalty lived there and then there were some rooms that were kept in the way that Lady Bastile had them. After the castle we wandered out to the grounds where there was a HEDGE MAZE! I had always wanted to do one, which was super exciting. It was really fun, and among us, there were definitely a lot of references to The Shining and Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. It took probably about 20 minutes to find the center of the maze (which was the end) where you got up to this small mound and could look out over the rest of the maze. After you finished, the way out of the maze was actually this underground tunnel and grotto which was blissfully cool and damp but also kind of trippy. There was a lot of water running in and out of stone creatures' mouths and all the lighting kept changing colors so in rapid succession people would be blue, green, red, etc. We played down there for a while simply because it was nice and cool before resurfacing. After the maze we only had about an hour before we had to go back. The boys wanted to play on the playground (typical) so Caitlin and I decided to have a leasiurely stroll back to the coach, stopping to get some ice cream on the way. It was delicious and perfectly summery. Our coach left at 6 at we got back to our dorm at about 7:30.

It was truly a delightful day and much better than the Isle of Wight because we actually did things.

Well I suppose it's back to the essay-editing for me! Seriously, if I didn't have work, this would be the most perfect time ever.

Oh and HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all you mothers out there. Especially mine.