Day 4 London, England 6/26/11
The groups split up for the
day. Five of us got up to go to Canterbury and Dover (the optional). The
other three of us went shopping in London and visited the museum.
The Canterbury/Dover group
traveled to Canterbury cathedral, where the archbishop of Canterbury is
headquartered. The guide, Stewart, gave
some history which included Thomas
Beckett. King Henry the eighth made him the archbishop, who is the head of the
Anglican church in England. He had to answer to the king. Beckett took his job
seriously and took God's side over what the king wanted in certain situations. Unfortunately,
he was murdered in that church quite gruesomely. Some of the members attended
church there, as it was a Sunday. They even got to bring the sacraments up to
the altar.
The town of Canterbury was
quite quaint with cobblestone streets. It was quite folksy. The group stayed to
explore for about two and a half hours.
Then they went to Dover castle, which is the nearest point
to France (about 22 miles). It was a natural defensive place that had a
lighthouse that was first built by the Romans. Henry the second decided to
impress the French by building a great castle. Later, King John (of Robin Hood
legend) was at Dover and decided to build tunnels for hiding places in case of
invasion. When Napoleon invaded, they hid in these tunnels and repelled them.
Despite the government's desire to have Dover be used as a shipping post, it
was used primarily for troops in both world wars.
The view of the town of Dover
and the beach was great.
The museum/shopping group left
the hotel around 10:00 and got to Trafalgar square a little after 11:00. We
decided to go to the National Museum looking at the paintings there. Ashley is
going to go into art and really enjoyed seeing the display. Betsy and I also
enjoyed seeing how good the pictures were done and seeing some of the history
behind it.
We had enough after an hour
and a half and started exploring towards Piccadilly Circle.
It was very hot outside,
definitely shorts weather. We really had good weather while we were in London.
We found a place to eat called EAT. It is basically a “grab a sandwich and a
drink” store, so we had a small meal. It felt good to be off our feet and
inside.
Afterward, the girls
discovered the store “The Sting” on Piccadilly Circle. They probably shopped
for over an hour while Jeremy (from the Texas group) and I waited. The girls
bought stuff and were quite happy.
Jeremy, Betsy, and Ashley at the bus stop
We knew we had to meet the
rest of our group back at the restaurant that was close by, so we decided to
see the Ripley's Believe it or Not museum. I paid my almost 19 pounds and
managed to spend a few hours watching the displays that included:
•
bubble gum
statues.
•
a Marilyn Monroe
exhibit.
•
Torture pieces.
•
anything else
Robert Ripley went around the world to obtain that was weird.
The tour finished with a
mirror maze.
We spent the last hour before
supper heading for our restaurant and buying souvenirs and such. We met the
other group who was also shopping around. We ate at Bistro One and had another
traditional English meal, bangers and mash, which is basically sausage and
potatoes. Dessert was a banana cream pie like dessert with chocolate.
After the meal, I took some kids for a last minute trip to knock down some objectives. We went to the Hard Rock Cafe to look at presents and mementos The restaurant was not open, but we didn't care, we just wanted the mementos. Then we went to King's Cross station and tried to see 9¾ station to get our pictures by the Harry Potter cart that was bolted into the wall.
Betsy and Steve ready to go to Hogwarts
We got back at about 9:30 and
relaxed a little. We have an early wake up call at 5:00 am because we leave
early to go to Paris via the Chunnel. We have to be ready to go by 6:00 as the
train leaves around 8:30 or so.
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