Today we picked up our hire car to begin our road trip of England. We decided it was easiest to get a cab to the car rental yard rather than pick the car up and load up at the flat, parking is a huge issue here and all over London.
Unlike Chaucer’s version, our travels to Canterbury will not include fidelity, courtship or death! However, I am sure there will be a bit of intrigue and a lot of love, and many colourful tales.
And so, it begins.
We woke at 6am to the sound of heavy rain on the roof just above our heads, not a good start to our first road trip day. But it turned out OK. It took a little longer than I thought to get our stuff together and tidy up the flat. We weren’t due to pick our car up until 10:30 at The Marble Arch Marriott Hotel. We were all ready to leave at about 9:50am, so I took our luggage to the lift and Deb was going to walk down. The lift got us again, 1 bag and 1 person at a time! So a couple rides later we were all ready to hail a cab at the front the door. It was raining, so Deb got the cab while I wrangled the bags, a minute later we were in a Black Cab and on our way. Love being able to hail a cab at your doorstep.
We got to the Marriott and had to line up, 2 couples ahead of us. Anyway, by 10:4 5am we had our car, an almost new Mercedes A180D Sports Automatic . A nice little car, a bit better than the small 4 door we had ordered! It took us a little while to get going, I literally could not find the gear shift! Turns out it was the lever on the right side of the steering wheel. (the one on the left was the indicator and wipers).
Now we were set to take on the London traffic in the wet. Our onboard gps was set to avoid tolls, and London has a cbd congestion levy, which, because of where we picked the car up, we were already paying. We still have no idea about how to change this setting. So that wasn’t helpful. Deb got google maps out, and an hour later, and a bit of an exploration of a few backstreets, we were out of London and on our way down the A2 to Canterbury.
We stopped for a late lunch in Rochester. The centre of town was amazing, cobblestone streets and old, old shops and buildings. We did a couple of laps of the town centre before we found the carpark, we had been warned that parking is an issue in most of the smaller, and many of the larger towns in the south. We had lunch at a small café called Tiny Tim’s (no, not the ukulele playing Tim) and then went to have a look through the cathedral.
Rochester Cathedral is the 2nd oldest Cathedral in England, dating back to 604AD. It has been in constant use as a church all that time. It has a very rich history, being the place where “Textus Roffensis” was written. The very first written copy of the first code of English Law. It was consecrated by King Henry I, it was used by King John during his siege on Rochester Castle, King Henry VIII met Anne of Cleves there, it was a central setting of Charles Dickens last and unfinished novel, The Mystery of Edwin Drood. It was really interesting walking through the Cathedral and its crypt, a beautiful building oozing with history. As we left, we had a walk around the outside, such an impressive building, complete with an old graveyard.
We drove up passed the castle and then onto Canterbury. The A2 motorway is the main road to Dover and the Channel Tunnel (Chunnel), so is very busy, particularly with trucks.
Our BnB is a 15 minute walk from the main part of town. Our room is described as “a cosy double”, we are up in the roof loft. A bit like being back in our old caravan.
It was still raining as it seems to here (a lot), but you have to get on with things so we set out for a walk along the river before heading to a local pub for dinner. The walk was good, the “river” ( maybe creek might be better, although as Deb said, we would call it a river at home in Adelaide) was flowing pretty well and there were others out walking home from work or going out.
We were unsure of the name of the pub our hosts had told us to try, so Deb messaged her, as Deb got her reply we came to the end of the riverside walk. The pub was “The Millers Arms”, we looked up and across the road, there it was on the corner! Who would have thought!
We had a selection of 5 small plates to share, better than we have had at a few pubs around home. I had a pint of Whitstable Bay Pale and Deb had soda water. It was a nice quiet pub with a sprinkling of locals and a few other tourists. A great way to finish our Canterbury Tales Day.
So there you have it, the story of our travels to Canterbury, full of the intrigue of the workings of our car and London roads/traffic in the rain, and our love for the history and beauty of this country (and each other of course )
