...Because I’m a Daaaaay-ay-ay Tripper!

 (Taken from the coach--don't mind the reflection)

*Day 11: Left at 7 this morning to see the lovely towns of Dover and Canterbury!  We took a coach and drove for approximately 2 hours—2 hours which I spent sleeping.  so no comment about the drive.   So first off we went to ‘Hellfire Corner”.   Underneath Dover castle, dug into the cliffs (the white cliffs of Dover! <--), are secret war tunnels.  Originally dug during the Napoleonic Wars, they were expanded and used during WWII as a secret headquarters of sorts.  They were really cool actually.

*I was a little picture happy today!  Hope no one minds

we couldn’t take pics inside…but here are the girlies and I in the waiting area

After we “surfaced” we went and explored the castle.  I loved it!  Everything was so green, the view was awesome (we could even see sheep grazing!), and the castle itself had all sorts of medieval-storybook stuff going on: flags, turrets, the whole she-bang! 

Here's a group shot out front

   

Wanna-be model poses under the archway      

Admiring the view

 There were cannons...so naturally we had to climb on one     

          

Roman Lighthouse!  Oldest in England. 

      The lovely view!       

                                  

One that Brianna took--So pretty!

Next Stop: Canterbury

Now it’s time for a Canterbury tale… (no, not Chaucer’s) 

Once upon a time England was a Christian nation (c. 100-410 AD), then the Anglos and/or Saxons came and England became a “pagan” nation.  Whilst in their pagan-ness Pope Gregory (before he was pope) visited and decided these people deserved to be taught Christianity.  He didn’t get the O.K. originally, but once he became the pope he sent Augustine and 4o other missionaries to England.  When they arrived in 597 they met King Ethelbert and his wife Bertha (lovely names).  Bertha was a Christian and was allowed to worship regularly at a church called St. Martin’s.

(due to a fortunate misfortune-involving us showing up at St. Augustine’s Abbey on a day it wasn’t open. We had time to visit St. Martin’s while we waited for someone to open the gates to the Abbey ruins especially for us.  We’re the first BYU group that’s been to visit St. Martin's.  Dr. Seely was super excited.)  

So here it is St. Martin’s the oldest church in England…the birthplace of Christianity in England…where dear old Bertha worshipped and we got to visit it—a nice caretaker woman showed us in and let us sing in it (I got nominated to lead us in songs).  

Inside

                 

Picture of us on the pews (real flattering of me--I know)

Pretty Windows

                               

Now continuing our history…because his wife was Christian, Ethelbert let Augustine and the missionaries set up shop in Canterbury. And soon St. Augustine’s Abbey and Canterbury Cathedral were built.   

 

(Today the Abbey is in ruins…it was destroyed with Henry VIII and dissolution)

So this is Canterbury Cathedral.  Fast forward a bit…to where Thomas Beckett, enters the story.  Basically all you need to know is Becket was murdered in the Cathedral and so he was canonized.  His bones were buried in the crypt and became relics.  People for some odd reason like to visit this kind of stuff (bits of bone, someone’s tooth, so-and so’s shall,  “actual” stones from Solomon’s temple etc. etc. etc.) so this whole pilgrimage thing (the subject matter of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales) started and now Canterbury is famous because people want to visit Becket’s bones and see where he died—They even have an alter marking the exact spot.   

This place was HUGE!  Very beautiful and very impressive! (my camera died or else I would have taken a bunch of pictures... I stole these from nan)

         

 

All in all in was a great trip!  So much to see and all really beautiful. I was dead by the end of the day….and slept the whole way home.     

Xoxo!