Travel Diaries: England & Scotland 2015 (7) – Brighton + Canterbury

And to England as well, but oh well, it’s the Scotland bit I was most excited about 🙂 On our eight and final day, we drove from (through) Brighton, after spending the night in the YHA Youth Hostel South Downs, and up to Canterbury, where we visited Canterbury Cathedral (the architecture! the beauty!), had a delicious lunch, and then made our way back to Dover (the port, the lovely weather, the sea!) and went back home…

I’m absolutely not sure whether anybody cares about what we did while on this holiday, but as at least one friend asked, this seemed like an easy way to get it all down at once – one day at a time.

Day 8: 17/09/2016: South Downs – Brighton – Canterbury – Dover

On our last day, we figured we’d sleep in a bit – both because we deserved it, and because we really, desperately needed it. When we did get up though, it was to a blue sky and actual sunshine – a perfect way to end a holiday.
After some discussion, we figured we’d just drive through Brighton, as it was on our way anyways, and to focus our time (and money 🙂 ) on Canterbury. Thanks to the sun, we got an amazing view of the pier, the coastline and the (sometimes truly just majestic) buildings, all of which made the incredibly slow traffic a lot easier to bear.
Not long before lunch, though, we had arrived in Canterbury where, almost as soon as we left the parking, we heard a little brass band play (two trumpets, one clarinet, one guitar and a percussionist). Attracted by the music, and as we had already planned to have some actual food for lunch that day, we walked into the brasserie in front of which the musicians were playing. The food was delicious, the staff was so friendly, the service was excellent – and of course, we had some prime entertainment… The perfect day was carrying on!

Canterbury Cathedral

After paying for our food (not even that expensive!) we walked on, through some of the more narrow streets, towards the Cathedral. Now, I could try to explain just how magnificent this building is, but, truly, you sort of have to have been there to really understand – let me just guarantee you: it is absolutely worth your time, your money and the travelling to get there. The beautiful weather just made the place even more beautiful, and offered us a lovely view on the effects of the glass stained windows.
Eventually, we had to leave the Cathedral, though, as we did still have to buy some souvenirs, which we got done completely in the cathedral shop (they offered quite the range of stuff!) and as we still had some time to spare, we decided to enjoy the lovely little streets some more (lets forget that this resulted in us finding a second hand book store where we somehow managed to spend quite some money, even though most books were priced at £1 or £0.50).

By the time our parking ticket almost ran out, we decided that we were not going to take any risks, and would just drive straight to Dover – the amount of delay and traffic we’d already had, had finally taught us its lesson. Of course, we ended up not having any traffic at all, thus arriving at the port 3 hours early – but then again, this also resulted in us being placed on a boat which left 2 hours before the one we normally would’ve taken. Because we left earlier, we could enjoy the sunset on the sea, and not only did we arrive back home at a pretty decent hour – we actually got there at a point where we had enough time to hand out the souvenirs and recount all that we did – so basically the story you’ve just read 🙂

And that, dearest Leen, is the story of what we did on our trip to Scotland and England!

-Saar