We had packed early after a nice breakfast at Langland B&B, and said goodbye to David and Gilles. As Robert had already organised the train tickets at Swansea Railway Station, we just had to bike there from Mumbles in time and wait for our Great Western Railways train. Thinking of the name “Great Western”, it did not include a “great” storage space for bikes. We were supposed to hang the bikes, but barely one fitted in the space and the second one had to stand next to it and was half in the aisle. Fortunately the conductor was cool with it as long as the tea trolley could move past, and did not force us to get off at the next station.
We rolled along the Welsh coast and stopped at Cardiff and Newport, through the tunnel back to England , and had further stops in Bristol and Reading. I remembered some parts of the rail route from our 2022 trip when we took the train to Penzance and biked in Cornwall. So I knew exactly when to watch out for the White Horse Hill at Uffington Castle, which is supposed to be 2000-3000 years old and is still there. Talking about Prehistoric evidence, we entered the suburbs of a town which has evidence dating back to the Bronze age, but is documented since the first century AD by the Romans who called it “Londinium”.
This city known as London kept changing so rapidly that it is quite different from the Roman times. But even from our 2022 visit when we took the TGV from Munich to Paris and from there the Eurostar to St. Pancras, it would be this time the opposite way of arrival and reach Paddington Station first with our bikes, and from there we had to bike through the city to catch the train to Canterbury at St. Pancras. A fun tour through town, which did not feel like a transfer from one train to the next but another time travel through history.
At first we had to cross Hyde Park at the Serpentine Bridge, which is close to the Serpentine Pavillon, where each year world famous architects create another three-dimensional sculpture. The first one we saw in 2011 was by Peter Zumthor, who showed an enclosed garden for meditation within a black atrium building. Unfortunately the small time gap for our transfer from A to B didn’t allow us to see the actual pavilion.
But remembering the beauty of the gardens and the green one was used to experience in England’s parks, the reality had changed their appearance dramatically. The grass was not green anymore, but presented itself burned in gold and brown. We had spent already twelve days in Britain and not seen a single raindrop. Even Green Park showed its green only in the trees.
Eleven years after our 2011 visit we wandered through Green Park covered with millions of flowers and Paddington Bears as commemoration to Queen Elisabeth II, after she had passed away on the 8th September 2022. The scent of the flower bouquets had filled the air in Green Park so intensely, that you figured yourself being in a botanical greenhouse. Now we smelled nothing and the air was just dusty and dry.
The space in front of Buckingham Palace was as always full of tourists, and we also had to get a selfie with us on the bikes. We tried to get a stamp for our credentials at Westminster Abbey, but there were so many people standing in line for a tour and they didn’t expect any pilgrims, so they sent us to the catholic Westminster Cathedral. It is a church in Neo-Byzantine style in red brick and white Portland Stone.
From there we found our way to Lambeth Bridge to get the best view of the Palace of Westminster and the Big Ben. Enjoying the Southbank of the River Thames but struggling to move with bikes through the crowds of tourists, it didn’t make sense to continue all the way to Tower Bridge, because we could have our own Waterloo missing our next train reservation. So we crossed Waterloo Bridge to get to Soho and find a place to eat.
We didn’t feel like getting another Beef Wellington biking down Wellington Street and continuing on Bow Street didn’t make us crave for hunting more meat with bow and arrow. We were happy to find a wonderful Indian restaurant called Bab Mansour in Endell Street, named after A German art nouveau architect, that quickly served us a vegetarian dinner before we had to rush to St. Pancras Station to catch the train. We could even sit outside to keep an eye on our bikes.
From St. Pancras I ran over to Kings Cross Station to get a selfie of platform 9 ¾ and was back in time to join Robert to get our bikes on board of the spacious South Eastern Railway train. What a relief rolling with the train into the night, sitting beside our packed bikes. We chatted with a nice German girl who lived in Canterbury and occasionally had to go to London for work.
Once we arrived at Canterbury we didn’t immediately check in to our hotel, because the bells of the cathedral were calling in the typical way only British bell towers can do.
It’s a special technique to create melodies with twelve different bells, and we wanted to get close to it, but there was a policeman guarding the passage to the area of the cathedral. It is a bit like a gated community due to the university campus and the medieval structure. But seeing us being Pilgrims with the Saint James shell on our bags, he made an exception. So we were able to listen right in front of the cathedral to our own church bell concert until they finished and switched off the light.
When the ringers left the cathedral I took the chance and asked the person with the key how they create the sound of the melodies. He explained me that the bells are rotating in full circles in alternate direction. As the bell rotates at the same speed as the clapper inside you don’t hear it until the ringer pulls the rope and changes the direction at an exact moment given to him. So up to twelve ringers are standing in a circle and wait for the exact moment when it’s their turn to create their tone. It’s a binary system, which he showed me in diagrams on his mobile phone. Quite complex to compose a melody.
What an unique experience to arrive in Canterbury which such a treat. Finally we ended the day after checking in at the Falstaff Hotel.
