Day 19: Jolly Old England!
Saturday 10 May 2014
50 °F
Today my family and I traveled to England. It was a long morning, which consisted of taking a subway, riding the amazing Eurostar, taking a commuter train in England, and finally walking six blocks to our lodging for the night.
Sadly, I have no photos to show for today because my parents took care of photography with their devices. Visit their blog for a more complete post with photos @:
http://gryphonglobetrotters.travellerspoint.com
The Eurostar is one of the world's fastest bullet trains that travels through a tunnel under the English Channel, dubbed the "Chunnel." The ride under the channel is amazingly short (today it clocked in at about nineteen minutes and twenty seconds, compared to the five or so hours it would take a ferry to cross).
Our place in Canterbury, England is a spacious lodge within the grounds (!) of the amazing Canterbury Cathedral, of which we have a great view from our place. After a lunch in town, we toured the Cathedral, including the exact spot where the infamous murder of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, took place. After a rest period in the lodge, my mom and I went to an "Evensong" service at the cathedral. The girl's choir (comprised of girls of late junior to early high school age) was fantastic and maybe one of the most well-trained, musical, and unified youth choirs I have ever heard. It was stunning to attend such a sublime service in the expansive, ancient Canterbury Cathedral.
We spent the remainder of the afternoon recooperating from our travels.
Tomorrow we travel to London, England's largest city, so I will definitely have a more complete post then!
Henry
Read your review of the Evensong choir, and they are not in our library system. I bought two of their CDs which you may listen to on your return home. Met a whole group of interesting birders today at Columbus Park. One man is in charge of maintaining all of the ponds and lagoons in the city of Chicago (an Oak Parker with family). He's been birding since since 6 years old and while over seeing the parks, he birds for fun. Nice family. Hope all is well with your family and your adventure in the lands of Druids....
by Edward Vincent