UK - Day 23...Canterbury and the Coast

A Google search for Kent teaches us that it is a county, not just a city, and there are many destinations within Kent that would be worth visiting for an entire day, if not week. We weigh our options, knowing we only have one day including travel time, and decide to buy our train tickets to Canterbury. How can you pass up a place that is simply inspirational?
The city of Canterbury was once completely surrounded by a wall, but now less than half of the wall remains. It is still cool to enter a city through a tower gate though!
One that accommodates everything from bicycles to tractors, even!
We find the downtown area to be wonderfully quaint, with shopkeepers "gone fishing"...
sidewalk chalk artists in full swing...
strange crooked buildings...
fish and chips every few hundred feet...
and those houses with colored doors again!
We come to the beginning of the city wall near the expansive Dane John Gardens and just have to go up and have a walkaround.
Looking down into the Gardens, I see the childrens' maze/castle playground and I think I need one in my backyard at home - too cool!
Also near this end of the wall is a real castle in worse condition.
The Canterbury Castle ruins are open for exploration! You can climb probably halfway up the last remaining tower and look out into the courtyard and go into little nooks along the walls. We're like kids again!
The bells ringing from the Canterbury Cathedral beckon us down from the wall and through the city streets...until wow...there it is.
Need I say, Incredible?

Next, down a quieter street we find a little bookstore, the appropriate place for me to buy a copy of my favorite literature from senior English class, The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer.
The very kind shopkeeper sels me a version written in Old English and illustrated by William Morrison.
She then tells us we've seen what there is too see in little Canterbury and that we can catch a bus to the coast if we'd like. The sea! Yes, we would love to go.
Whitstable Harbour greets us with scattered spells of rain, but it is a lovely place. We arrive as the Oyster Festival is wrapping up and the vendors call out their remaining wares as the markets are closing.
We move away from the hum of activity at the Harbor market to the beach beyond. The gravelly shore isn't fit for barefoot walking, but the sound of the waves is as soothing as ever. It seems I haven't been in a place this quiet in weeks, although I'm sure that isn't really true.
Satara and I find a footpath the runs along the beach and is much easier to walk on.
We play at the piers and look out at the off-shore wind turbines...
...and think what a life it would be to live in one of these storybook rowhouses with your boat docked on the beach outside your front door. Then, I see something that reminds me of home and I'm suddenly less inclined to move into the yellow house in the middle.
The train ride back to my temporary home is an amusing one! As the train pulls away from Canterbury, we are chowing down on some amazing food three fellows from Kazakstan happily cooked for us at the kebab stand around the corner from the train station. We lay our tickets on the table in front of us so the ticket officer can check them without us putting our food down and digging with messy hands into our pockets and purses. Soon enough, he comes by and as he punches our tickets he talks cheerfully with us and keeps eyeing our food. Finally, I offer him a bite. He says "Oh no! I don't do that anymore! Once a young lad was eating an ice cream and I says 'can I have a bite?' and he did, he grabbed my hand and bit my finger!! So, I don't do that anymore!" Then, he is off down the aisle, making everyone on that train smile or laugh as he does the business of punching their tickets. He comes by every other stop or so, and even though he doesn't need to check our tickets again, he stops by to say hello and leaves us grinning as he continues down the car. Once, as we are trying to plan our last free day of the 3-day weekend, he stops to advise us which train we should take from which station. He's so jolly and so helpful - my hero of the day.