Dungeness and Canterbury, England

Fishermen on the beach at Dungeness...

and the local fish shack where we ate.

Abandoned boats and old fishing huts dot the area.

Canterbury Cathedral

Frescoes...

and strained glass windows.

The ceiling of the highest part... how did they do that?

Sunday, May 25th.

Bruce drove us to Dungeness, a point of land jutting into the English Channel, that was wind swept with pebbly beaches, south east of London. There were a couple of lighthouses here, a decommissioned nuclear power plant and a miniature railroad that visits several of the little communities along the coast. We had a fresh fish burger at a local ‘shack’. There is an inn here that dates to the 1600’s where the inn keeper and other local people used a lighthouse to lure a three masted sailing ship, the Alfresica, causing it to run aground on the shore where they killed the crew and looted the ship of its gold, wine and spirits. They used the hull of one of the ships to augment their original structure. There is a long history of smuggling and mayhem here. Then we drove to Canterbury to see the massive cathedral that I had visited back in the 70’s. I paid the entrance fee while they had a coffee, as they’d been earlier. This from Wikepedia: “Canterbury Cathedral is the cathedral of the archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the Church of England and symbolic leader of the worldwideAnglican Communion. Located in Canterbury, Kent, it is one of the oldest Christian structures in England. Founded in 597, the cathedral was completely rebuilt between 1070 and 1077. The east end was greatly enlarged at the beginning of the 12th century, and largely rebuilt in the Gothic style following a fire in 1174, with significant eastward extensions to accommodate the flow of pilgrims visiting the shrine of Thomas Becket the archbishop who was murdered in the cathedral in 1170.” Becket was murdered in the cathedral by henchmen of his former friend King Henry II. It is another engineering marvel built in the 12 century just before the age of the Black Death which I’d just been reading about. There is an excellent movie about it starring Peter O’Toole and Richard Burton as Beckett. Then we had lunch at an outdoor cafe, a wander around the city streets and a walk on the city wall before driving back to London. When we got back Pam cooked us a salmon and veggies dinner and we hung out for the evening.