7&8 July 2023, Sandwich and Canterbury England

7 & 8 July 2023

Well, I am finally in England with my daughter Alexandria, and resting up as much as I can so that my body can keep up with the time changes. Everything has been going about as smoothly as possible, except for a few minor hiccups. My flight arrived in England an hour and a half late, so we didn’t get to do as much of Down House as we wanted to, but it was still a nice visit. My Guardian Credit Union card works fine withdrawing British Pounds, but the software from my Credit Union blocks every attempt I make to check my card balances, either through the App, or their website (note to self, get a new credit union when I get back). Driving on the left side of the road is a work in progress (I only hit 4 curbs today, so that’s bound to get better as I adjust to a new way of driving). Traffic is terrible, but I am hoping that once I leave the London area, things will get better.

After gathering our luggage and climbing into the rental car, we drove to visit Down House. Owned by the English Heritage Trust, the house and Museum of Charles Darwin was a history lesson of a man much maligned for his theories on evolution. The grounds around the house were awesome. There were a lot of gardens, and plenty of reproduced experiments that he had done on plants, as well as walking paths and a nice picnic area. We were only able to spend about an hour there before they closed for the evening, but it was still nice.

That evening we checked into the Delta Hotel in Bexleyheath. Nice and comfortable, but as with most lodging accommodations over here, lacking in Air Conditioning. As I get nearer to the end of my trip, it will cool down, but right now, it is pretty hot and humid. Not as bad as Alabama, but at least there I can go inside. Over here, that’s not on option. Dinner that evening was at the Prince Albert Pub, across the street from the hotel. Alex tried the mushy peas for the first time, and actually liked them. We had buffalo cauliflower, fish and chips, and a couple of deep, fried sausages. Way too much food for us to eat. After a couple of pints of ale, it was off to bed for the next day’s adventure.

We slept in a little on Saturday the 8^th, to try and get our circadian rhythm back on track. After checking out of the hotel, we headed to St. Peter’s Church in Sandwich, Kent, England. This church was originally a Norman church built around 1100, but destroyed by the French in the early 1200’s. Rebuilt in the 13^th Century by the Carmelite friars, it still stands today, although when we visited it, they no longer had church services. It does have a nice belltower, and a museum is built inside of it as you climb all 121 steps to the top. You can go outside and enjoy the views from the top of the tower. The bells go off every 15 minutes, and it is a pretty tight fit going up and down the circle steps. In the chancel of the church, they had a lot of arts and crafts vendors, but at the nave, you could see some nice stained glass, and the cemetery markers set into the stones of the floor for some wealthy patrons. We were assured that the remains had been removed and locked up in the crypt below the church several years before. The crypts weren’t accessible to visitors, and the churchyard that once was next to the church had been converted into a park. Many of the headstones from the churchyard were lined up against a stone wall that separated the church grounds from the neighborhood next to it.

We also visited the Sandwich historical museum, and spoke with a couple of the volunteers inside. They were fascinated but the fact that my daughter Alex lives in Alaska, and one of the volunteers ushered her away for a private tour, leaving me by myself to look at the Roman artifacts that they had found in the city by people using metal detectors. Sandwich used to me a port town (Cinque Ports), and many immigrants from England departed Sandwich on their way to start a new life in the British Colonies in North America.

After departing Sandwich, we headed to Canterbury, where we will be staying for the next couple of nights. We arrived early so as not to be late when we met our Air BnB hosts, Monica and Jeremy. The apartment we rented is right in the middle of the city, so we plan on spending tomorrow seeing the local sights, and visiting Canterbury Cathedral. While walking downtown, we happened upon the St. George’s Clock tower. Once a large church, it was bombed by the German aircraft on 1 June 1942, and the remains of the church destroyed, all except the clock tower. It now stands right next to a street in downtown Canterbury.

While we were downtown, we stopped in a few of the shops for some souvenirs. Here are a few of the things we took pictures of:

After doing a little sightseeing, we decided to get some dinner. Alex had never had Doner Kebabs before, so we found a Turkish Doner kebab stand about a 12 minute walk from our apartment, and grabbed some takeout. Again, way too much food, so we stopped by the grocery store after dinner, and picked up a couple of salad s so that we could have Doner Kebab salads for lunch tomorrow.

Tomorrow, we see a few more sights in Canterbury, before heading over to Tonbridge on Monday for a couple of nights. Now it is time for a little sleep.