A Day in Canterbury

So today I woke up bright and early, at around 6:30 am, which is really early for me...but i had to be up because our Biola class had a day trip to Canturbury. Besides the earliness and the two hour bus ride to get there and back, it was a good day...pretty interesting. We visited The ruins of the St. Augustine Abbey. St. Augustine is credited with being the one who first brought Christianity to England as he was ordered to do so by the Pope in Rome. The Abbey was in use until King Henry the IIIV had it demolished, so it is now obviously in ruins, but still quite cool! We also got to visit St. Martin's Church which is the oldest working church in all of England...it is surrounded by a cemetery and is very small in size but is deffinitely a gem. After that we had some time to walk around the twon of Canterbury...which was adorable...the cuttest english town i have seen so far, but then again i haven't been to too many yet, i've mostly just seen London. And then we went on a guided tour of the Canterbury Cathedral, Pretty amazing although some of it only dates back to 2003. Obviously most of it was built much earlier, but i just thought that was funny...the fact that it is a "historical building" yet it has a spire that was constructed in 2003. Anyways the Cathedral was awesome...i just really love all types of european architecture. I also heard the Story of Thomas Becket for the first time, and how he was slain by some of King Henry's men inside the church...the story is quite fascinating really and sad too, that he was killed in a church...not to likely of a place for a murder to occur...or at least you wouldn't think. In one of our classes we have been learning about Iconoclasm, so it was neat...yet sad, to see the effects of that on art and sculpture of that time...basically the King sent in his men to Churches all over England and had them destroy are of any kind in the churches, including stained glass windows. Quite sad...but it was the way of the time. So yeah, that was oretty much my day in Canterbury. :)

01-Me at St. Augustine's

02-St. Augustine Ruins

03-tour guide

04-Me and Beth

05-in prayer

06-Graveyard

07-The church

08-The well

09-The little town

10-Christ Church Gate

11-The cathedral

12-Our Cathedral tour guide

13-inside the cathedral

14-The tower

15- Another view inside

16- Old flags