Desdemona

We did Paris and Brussels/Bruges Belgium on the Eurostar! We were based in Canterbury so it was just 1 1/2 - 2 hr. Journey to either place. That's the other thing I love about the UK, the speed and convenience of public transport especially trains.

Lothianlad

I love travelling by train and I always enjoy the run down from Edinburgh Waverley train station to London King's Cross train station. Great Britain was the first country in the world to set up a railway network, with the world's first train journey being that from Darlington to Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham, in 1829, at the same time as Great Britain set up the world's first organised Police Service, the Metropolitan Police in London, under the auspices of Sir Robert Peel.

Canterbury - site of the famous Cathedral founded by St Augustine in 597 AD following the establishment of Christianity in England, and who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. St Thomas a Becket was assassinated by King Henry II's henchmen in front of the main alter of Canterbury Cathedral on 29 December 1170....King Henry II was furious with Becket because the prelate opposed and blocked all attempts by the King to control the clergy, so Henry had his once close friend slain in cold blood while he was at prayer late in the evening.

During WW2's Nazi air raids on Canterbury desperate measures undertaken by the brave people of the city resulted in the Cathedral being destroyed by incendiary bombs.....people simply picked them up once they had dropped and ran hell for leather to a place where they could not damage the building...a foolhardy and very dangerous thing to do but their actions really did save the Cathedral from burning down...exactly the same thing happened when St Paul's Cathedral in London came under severe aerial bombardment on 29/30 December 1940.

Currently, Michael Portillo, former Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate, is running the 2nd Series of TV programs on BBC2 under the title of Great British Railway Journeys. Each weekly journey covers a set route, and is being shown in five weekly programs from Monday to Friday inclusive, between 18:30 and 19:00hrs on BBC2 TV.

This week's journey covers Kent and a part of East Sussex and starts off at St Pancras Station in London, going via Chatham, Maidstone, Tunbridge Wells, CANTERBURY, Whitstable, Sandwich, Folkestone (all in Kent) and ends up at Hastings, East Sussex.

This link covers tonight's program Wednesday 26/01/11 and shows the journey starting off in Canterbury, heading for Whitstable (where the oysters come from) Margate (statistically in weather terms the UK's driest seaside resort...it recorded only 242mm - 9.56 inches - of rain in a complete year - 1921) and ending up in Sandwich (where the Earl and his tasty slices of bread with a filling comes from) and where a famous Royal Golf Club is located, overlooking the English Channel.

Although Kent is so close to Greater London, and contains a lot of sizeable towns, and is criss crossed with major motorways and main railway lines, including the Channel Tunnel railway link from London through to the Continent. it has plenty of gorgeous countryside, orchards galore and of course, hop fields with the familiar necessary oast houses in which the hops were dried out once they were picked. Many of the former oast houses have now been converted into really lovely homes. Kent is dotted here and there with many famous mansions and castles, such as the moated Leeds Castle, Chartwell (former home of Winston Churchill) Hever Castle (former home of the illfated Anne Boleyn) Sissinghurst (former home of Vita Sackville West, and Goodnestone* (former holiday home of Jane Austen).

*The names of many places in Kent are not pronounced anything like the way they are spelled, for some strange reason - Goodnestone is "Goonstun", Wrotham is "Rootum", Trottiscliffe is "Trossley" and Horsmonden is "Hormsdun".
Place names in Norfolk are also very confusing, too. There must be a reason for all this weird inconsistency, but that's England for you.....as the American writer Bill Bryson (from Des Moines, Iowa but now a long term resident of Yorkshire and now Norfolk) says - "one of the many joys of this lovely little island!"

A village in Essex is called Ugley, and the local Women's Institute there all voted to change the usual title of their organisation in which the nationally accepted form is the name of the village immediately followed by the words "Women's Institute". They had it officially changed to something else -to what I do not know.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00y47jt

Desdemona

Oh God now I want to go back Brings back so many memories.

Thanks for the tips on those programs. I just tracked them down on UKNova and am now in the process of downloading. We did the trip to East Sussex by train passing through Hastings to visit a cousin in Eastbourne. Don't even remind of the beautiful countryside. It just fills me with a longing to go back We rented a cottage in Barham just six miles from Canterburty and were based there for four weeks. One week of which we spent in Port Isaac, Cornwall. You have a very beautiful country -- just loved every bit of it.

Beedubya

Lothianlad is now a promoter of Beautiful Britain, "I don't believe it", she says in Victor Meldrew voice.

Lothianlad

Well, if nothing else I'm trying to be even handed. The American lady who wished to know about the "good and the bad and the ugly" about this country of ours so this time round I was concentrating on the first two qualities, and I really think that Michael Portillo's excellent programs currently running on BBC2 TV about his travels by train all around the British Isles, on a weekly day by day basis covering individual journeys (this week as I say it's the London to Hastings run via stop overs all around the extreme south east corner of England, mostly Kent) really do justice to what is undeniably very attractive about Britain. He gets to tak to some very interesting people doing all sorts of very interesting things in very interesting places.

This evening he visits Sandwich, Ashford and Folkestone on his roundabout rail journey. Tomorrow evening he ends up at the terminal point - Hastings, an interesating town in itself split into two halves - Old Hastings and the New Hastings. Nearby Battle is a small village the name of which is very self explanatory.

Cheers - having my lunchbreak now.....cheddar cheese and Branston rolls fresh from the lovely lady with the trolley.

hayleyatfla

im so jealous of your bloody lunch... (:

beachgal21

Yes me too! Proper cheese instead of the rubbery processed Cheddar they pass of as cheese here

AmericanCountrygirl

David says that all the time, American cheese is crap! There are some good cheese here, wisconsin cheeses are awesome! Then again, I haven't experienced cheese from the UK yet!

beachgal21

Oh boy are you in for a treat

Desdemona

And American bread apparently doesn't pass muster. So how does one make a decent Ploughmans ? Loved those while I was in the UK Oh and the Cheese and pickle. Yum!

hayleyatfla

Oh fresh bread in England and a cheese and onion sandwich is pure heaven (:

cuttysark

Not to hijack this thread or anything, but your situation sounds almost exactly like mine (I think) and I stumbled upon this forum in hopes for some answers/advice.
I moved to the US with my family (Mum, Dad, Sister) from the UK when I was 14. I'm almost 30 now and I want to move back to the UK. The rest of my family seems quite content with staying in the US for the foreseeable future, but I've never shook the feeling that I might just be better off over there. I've just renewed my green card, we've not become citizens. It's making me re-think where I want to be, and where I'd be most happy. I've still got loads of friends in the UK and all of my extended family. What was your experience like? Similar?

Bob

A decent local bakery...but only as a treat, can't feed a family of kids on $5-6 loaves of bread

Same with the cheese, Trader Joes or WholeFoods if you don't have all indie places...but bit too pricey for every day family munching.

Cheese has gotten better here in the last couple of years, well variety at least, but they need to stop thinking something is age old cheddar if it's aged 6-9 months...that's just smeg, it's not aged till 3 years at least

Bob

Should have gotten your US citizenship, makes it much more easier to decide, because if it doesn't work out for you, you can always come back, or even years down the line.

Welcome to BE though!

cuttysark

Thanks for the welcome! Yeah, was thinking about the citizenship/green card decision. Might need to revisit that since my parents and sister will be staying in the US. I had planned on coming back to the US once a year and saying my parents' house was my residence. Don't know if that'll fly, so I might just need to take the citizenship plunge.