Thursday, June 28, 2012

Pilgrimages and White Cliffs: Canterbury and Dover


Tuesday
We had our first field trip out of the city; we made our own pilgrimage to Canterbury Cathedral.  It is the seat of the Church of England, and the Archbishop of Canterbury is in charge of the whole Church, second only to the Queen.  It is still a working church, but membership is extremely small, although it does apparently pack out on Christmas and Easter. The Cathedral is the famous one that Chaucer writes about in his Canterbury Tales that millions made trips to in order to see the shrine to Thomas a Becket, who was murdered at the Cathedral by henchman of the king.  The king was frustrated with Thomas because he would not support capital punishment.  Immediately, Thomas was revered as a martyr, and his shrine was believed to have healing capabilities.  T. S. Eliot wrote a famous play about the event called Murder in the Cathedral. 
The Cathedral was exactly what I imagined: It was beautiful and overwhelmingly grand.  Inside I felt like a tiny ant milling about under the huge arches.  We saw where Thomas was murdered, but King Henry VII destroyed his shrine during the Protestant Reformation.  The Protestants also destroyed most of the medieval stained glass and the statues of the saints, which was too bad.  The few that were left are gorgeous.  The Protestants did not destroy the statue of the patron saint of travelers, since they were traveling around “de-idolizing” the churches.  I found that to be a bit of an ironic detail. 
After seeing the Cathedral, we wandered into the town for lunch.  I was a bit disappointed by the town; it was completely commercialized.  I was expecting just the Cathedral and a few houses with thatched roofs.  Instead, it was extremely touristy.  Still, the Cathedral was beautiful and well-worth seeing.

Then we ventured to Dover.  Our first stop was Dover Castle, which is located on the beautiful White Dover Cliffs.  The Medieval Castle had some furniture in it to give a feel for how the Castle used to look.  We also went into the Medieval-era underground tunnels that British soldiers later used to hide out from Napoleon.  The highlight was sitting on the cliffs facing the Channel.  This entire trip we have been blessed with beautiful weather, and Tuesday was no exception.  Standing at the top of the Castle, with my hair blowing in the sea breeze, I could almost imagine knights coming through the gate. 
Afterwards, we made a quick trip down to the rocky beach to see the famous beach that Matthew Arnold immortalized in his poem “Dover Beach”.  Dr. Ryken read aloud the poem as we settled into the pebbles.  It was amazing to sit there and see what Arnold saw as he wrote the poem.  Here is the first stanza:
“The sea is calm tonight
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! You hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.”

On the way home, we saw from the coach “The Shakespeare Cliff” where King Lear was to have stood as he contemplated jumping. Overall, Dover was beautiful.  It was a quaint seaside town and was untouched by commercialism.
Once we returned to London, we made one last pilgrimage for the day.  A few of us on the trip are fans of the British television show Sherlock.  We went to where they film the street front on Gower Street (they don’t use Baker Street because of the Sherlock Museum.)  In addition, we saw the famous Speedy’s restaurant where Sherlock and Watson often sit and eat and muse about their current case.  We were hoping to order a “Sherlock Wrap”, but unfortunately Speedy’s only serves lunch.  Hopefully, we will make it over to Speedy’s again!

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