Canterbury and the rest of our visit to England...

Although London was an absolutely overwhelming place which could not be exhausted in a week, Canterbury was a manageable destination suitable for a day's visit.

The city has a fine mix of architecture and its center is wholly walkable, making it ideal if you don't have a car.

Throughout its streets, you are treated to charming buildings like this one:


The centerpiece is, of course, the cathedral. I had to explain to Mari what the big deal is about the “flying buttress,” which was the coolest possible engineering innovation of that age. It allowed a vaulted stone ceiling to be held-up by an apparent wall of glass. Alas, Mari looked bored as hell by my explanation so I shut-up and simply let her enjoy the architecture.

In the basement, various bishops were buried and you could see certain tombs had been defaced during the Reformation.

Sadly, I don't have too many good pictures covering the next few days. To make a long story short: from Canterbury, we went back to Orpington. The next morning, we took a train to Bristol and stayed at the home of one of Mari's friends in one of the smaller suburbs of that city. We borrowed her car and I drove us around rural Somerset through roads which were exactly one car wide. The whole time I couldn't relax because I was afraid to scratch the vehicle. It was a while since I'd driven on the left side of the road in Japan, but after a few minutes it came back to me and we managed to see some small towns (Wells, Yate, Wedmore) without incident.

After three days in the Bristol/Somerset area, we trekked back to Heathrow and hopped-on a plane to Iceland, which is where I'll pick-up next.

And, let me tell you, Iceland is totally far-out.