BOX 207: Canterbury, Chilham, London.

You're on the High Street of Canterbury, UK on a day in early January 1998. The building in the center of the photo dates back to Tudor times, and it's claimed that the first Queen Elizabeth stayed there in 1573. In any case, the second floor has been a tea room/lunch establishment for some time. I took this photo as Anne and I were on our way to see the great Cathedral of Canterbury, on the first day of our week-plus stay in the city.

When my campus, UW-Sheboygan, hired a new dean in the mid/late '90s, his mission was to build up our presence in the community and reverse a declining enrollment, and one of his tactics was to establish an annual trip abroad in which students could enroll for credit. This indeed became an annual tradition for a decade and a half--an incredible enrichment of the lives of those of us who participated. Future trips would take us to several other countries, but Canterbury was the center of operations for five of them, more than any other city.

Dean Mark Tierno had connections in Kent that led him to choose Canterbury as our base for exploring southeastern England, his essential idea being that it would be both educationally better and greatly less expensive to immerse ourselves in a small but culturally rich community and use public transportation to get to a nearby metropolis for visits, rather than stay in the metropolis itself. And we would travel in the off-season, during our January break. And so, for $999 (quite a bargain in 1998), covering the flight, hotel, breakfasts, buses to and from airports, theatre tickets, and a discounted British Rail pass, a student could sign up and get college credit by attending morning lectures--from

UWS faculty--taking some locally guided tours, and keeping a detailed journal. Remaining spots on the trip would be filled by other faculty and the public, who were welcome to hear the lectures and join the tours as they liked. And so a group of 40+ (the number of people one airport transportation bus could hold) left Sheboygan for O'Hare around January 6, flew to Heathrow, and took another bus to Canterbury (a two-hour ride). Here is our bus after arrival at the side door of the County Hotel, whose main entrance faced the High Street at the very center of town. That's Jim Tobin on the right in the photo, and I think his wife Jean near the bus and Mary Ann Searle, our Student Services director at the time, in the middle. (I have better photos of all of them later.) The County Hotel was a wonderfully old-fashioned establishment, with cozy rooms located in a labyrinth of corridors with odd bends and little sets of stairs; see here for some historic photos of it. I'm now sorry I didn't take pictures of our room or of the pub/lounge area where we spent leisure time, but at least I have one of the meeting room where we had a breakfast buffet and our faculty trip leaders (Mary Beth Emmerichs, History, and Bob Margrett, English) gave their morning lectures. This picture was taken on the last morning of our trip; I can't identify most of the people, but I'll point out Becky (who along with Michelle came with Anne and me on the trip) in the back left; Mary Beth in the red sweater; Jim Tobin standing next to her; Anne with her long reddish hair in the left foreground; and Chris Scholke--a classmate of Aron and friend of our whole family--in the white sweater in the right foreground.

We arrived in Canterbury mid-morning and had the rest of the day free. Of course Anne and I were eager to see the legendary Cathedral, a short walk from the County Hotel, past "Queen Elizabeth's Guest Chamber" (top of this post) and a left turn down a narrow street where the gate to the Cathedral loomed ahead:

. . . and here, seen through the gate, is our first view of the Cathedral itself, or in this photo the western portion of it:

It was just after 11 am if the church clock is accurate. We didn't pay to go through the gate and explore the church and grounds at this time, since we would be getting a guided tour the next morning. We probably had lunch at the Weavers, a restaurant located right next to a branch of the River Stour that flowed through the center of town, as you see from this photo taken from the High Street bridge:

That's the Weavers on the left; I'm glad to see that as of the latest Google Street View it's still in operation, with a sign that says "Traditional English roast/Home-made pies/Stuffed Yorkshire pudding/Fish & Chips"; Ask, across the river to the right, a good Italian restaurant as I recall, is still in operation too.

We took a nap to get over jetlag and feel ready for the evening, when Mark had arranged for anyone willing and able to go to a pub he knew in Ramsgate on the sea, about 18 miles east of Canterbury and reachable by train or shared taxi. The pub had live jazz, locally brewed Kentish beers and ciders (being a "Free House") and good food--a great place, but I didn't bring my camera since it was night. (Sunset at that time of year in Kent was just after 4:30 pm, sunrise at 8.)

The next morning we had our first tours of the town and the exterior of the Cathedral, given by local guides, for whom we divided ourselves into smaller groups. In the photos below you can find Jean and Mary Beth in the left one and Anne in the red coat in the right one. Both shots were taken near the gate leading into the Cathedral Yard.

Here's a closer look at the SW entrance to the Cathedral:

And here are views of and from the grand cloister:

Near the cloister is this 'lavatory tower,' where the monks of old washed up:

I was happy to see, in early January, a flowering tree--a winter plum, I was told:

From the north part of the Yard there was a good view of the full length of the Cathedral, but it was hard to get a good photo of its shaded side in the winter morning light:

Meanwhile, on the sunny south side, I found smaller winter plum tree blossoming right against a church wall:

And here's one last photo from that walk around the exterior--I believe this is St Anselm's Chapel:

That morning's tour covered only the exterior of the Cathedral; a separate tour the next day would take us through the interior. I didn't attempt photos inside the church--my Olympus SLR (I don't remember when I replaced my bulkier Nikon) couldn't have gotten good results without a tripod. But the beauty and the complex history of the Cathedral made it one of the truly special places I have ever visited.

It was sleeting when that first tour began, if I recall correctly, but as the photos show, the sky was gradually clearing, and by noon it was blue and cloudless. That afternoon Mary Beth led a group of us, i.e., whoever wanted to go, to Chilham, a village two local train stops west of Canterbury (about 7 miles). It proved to be an enchanting place--one we would revisit every time we returned to Canterbury. As we walked from the train station up the hill to the village center we saw sheep grazing:

We reached the half-timbered houses of the village:

At the top of the hill was the village square (essentially a parking lot at that time) with, at one end, the White Horse Inn/Pub and a Norman-era church, St. Mary's:

I see by the church clock that we spent at least a full hour in Chilham, enjoying the beautiful winter afternoon:

. . . not to mention the refreshments at the White Horse. The afternoon was warm enough for us to take our drinks into their courtyard:

A shot of Anne from the pub yard with the church in the background unfortunately has her out of focus but I'll include it anyhow, along with a sharper one of her standing in the square with Chris:

At the other end of the square from the church and the White Horse was the manor house of the local aristocracy, Chilham Castle, dating back to 1616.

I tried to get a better photo by raising and pointing my camera above the tall gate:

A peacock, maybe belonging to the manor house, was perched on a village wall:

Beyond the rooftops were views of the Kentish Downs:

On Saturday we made our first excursion to London. As group leaders Mary Beth and Bob led walking tours of famed parts of the city: Mary Beth took her group to the Tower of London for a historical tour, while Bob led those more interested in literary landmarks. Anne and I, as uncommitted travelers (and it was my seventh visit to London), were eager to see the famous Saturday Portobello Street Market--a several-block stretch of open-air antiques, "junk," food stalls and much more, in the Notting Hill neighborhood (featured in the movie Notting Hill, which came out in the summer of '99), as well as another celebrated market in Camden Town. Michelle and three students elected to join us.

Arriving at Charing Cross Station we first took a look at neighboring Trafalgar Square. This photo must have been taken from the steps of St Martin's-in-the-Field:

We took the Underground to Notting Hill Gate and walked uphill from there. Earlier stretches of Portobello Road were less crowded, as you see in the next shot, where a "living statue" was getting ready for the day. The shot after shows more of a crowd, with Anne and our students merging into it:

After exploring the Market, having lunch on the go from the stalls, and stopping at a fun cookbook bookstore on a side street, we walked through the elegant Notting Hill streets just off Portobello. In the next shots you see the honey-colored St Peter's Church and, at the end of a street called Kensington Park Gardens, St John's Church.

We gradually made our way down to Kensington Park, where in the Italian Gardens we passed the Victorian Pump House. I love the slanted winter light in these sunny scenes.

After we walked through a bit of Hyde Park, another Underground ride took us to Camden Town and the Regent's Park Canal where the market was to be found. I see that my pics are all of the more photogenic Canal rather than the Market, though we did have a good time shopping too:

From the pedestrian path we could see houses whose back yards went right down to the water:

Barge riders seemed to be enjoying themselves:

We walked as far down as the back end of the Regent's Park Zoo (no pictures) and back to Camden Lock:

Anne, Michelle and the students did want to see a few classic London sights before catching the last evening train back to Canterbury, so our next stop was Buckingham Palace:

Here are more shots of Michelle and the students as they perched the Victoria Memorial in front of the palace:

I also took a photo of Michelle posing next to 'Manufacture,' one of the statues ringing the Victoria Memorial. From there we walked to Westminster Abbey, but my photo of the church is too poor to include here. For dinner we made our way to a place called Belgo. Anne and I, having loved our 1995 stay in Belgium, were excited to go to a restaurant specializing in mussels and fries, with over 100 entries in its Belgian beer menu. (In 1998 Belgian beers beyond Stella d'Artois were still virtually unknown in the US.)

The rest of our Canterbury stay included a day trip to Paris (thanks to the Eurostar and Canterbury's proximity to the super-train's one stop in England before plunging beneath the Channel) and at least one more day in London, besides fine walks around Canterbury, but I'll save them for the next post.