On Friday, we were able to get a tour of the Cathedral as well as the city of Canterbury.
It rained a lot during the city tour, but I was able to get some nice pictures of the inside of the Cathedral.
This is the inscription above the door to the alcove where St. Thomas Becket was murdered on Tuesday December 29, 1170. He was one of four archbishops of Canterbury who were murdered (though not all of them were Catholic Archbishops). According to witnesses, St. Thomas Becket passed through this door at about 4:30pm to go say vespers in the Cathedral. He was followed by four knights of the king (who had accused him of treason, and had been arguing with him for the entire day). They called him back down these steps…
…and then dealt him several blows. The monks that were accompanying him tried to protect him (one of them was unfortunate enough to have his arm severed), and finally, one of the knights dealt Thomas a blow to the head so severe, it chopped off the top of his head, and broke the sword.
This Modern sculpture is supposed to represent the four swords of the knight, as well as the broken sword (the shadows are intentional). The sculpture is situated in the alcove where the murder took place.
After the Cathedral tour, we had a tour of the city of Canterbury, but it was raining, so I didn’t get very many good pictures. Here are some random photos from the guided River Tour that we took on Saturday.
The tour was fabulous! Our guide was very entertaining – he was a student from a rival university, which made it even funnier. We learned many, very British, tidbits about old buildings around the river, and about the river itself. 
This is the official “ducking stool” which was used as a punishment for nagging wives. According to our river tour guide, the woman wasn’t ducked under the water for very long – but what made the punishment so horrific was the large amount of sewage in the river. It was meant to teach her when to close her mouth :P
On that happy note…Cheers!
~Laura
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