Canterbury day trip
 

I'm traveling with my parents to London for a few days in early November. We're interested in visiting Canterbury as a day trip from London, esp now that the high-speed train cuts travel time to just about 1 hour.

The earliest off-peak train we can take is at 9:37am, which will get us to Canterbury at 10:38am. Sunset in early November is around 16:30, so we will have approx 5.5 hours there.

Here are my plans for the day trip:

Visit Canterbury Cathedral upon arrival. Possibly 1 hour there?
Lunch
Canterbury Roman Museum
+/- Canterbury Tales? (I know it's kind of kitschy, but think it'll be fun? or should we not bother?)
Wander around medieval walls and walk around town
Depart

[St Augustine's Abbey is only open on weekends, but we can only go during the week.]

Are there other must-sees? Or any suggestions/comments? Recommendation for lunch (we eat anything)?

Many places to eat in the central town. You will need longer than an hour to view the Cathedral. Skip the Canterbury Tales.

You look as if you will have the main sights covered, although you may need longer in the cathedral, don't rush it, if you can go to the Cathedral first you will be there when the page in the Book of Remembrance is turned at 11am, when I was there there was I think an announcement, if not ask one of the guides. Be warned the Cathedral shop can be quite expensive for gifts etc, they have some lovely CDs of the Cathedral choir, also almost next door to the shop is the National Trust shop another good source of quality gifts etc with an English theme.
For lunch and I always hesitate to recommend anywhere, but one of my favourites is "Tiny Tim's Tearoom" I can never remember the name of the road but it's just past the Canterbury Tales on the same side of the street. Fresh food well cooked and with some local specialities.

The Canterbury Tales may well be kitschy, and although I haven't been, I think I'd try to visit. Perhaps others can give an assessment of the Tales. Maybe make it weather dependent. If it's a nice day do the medieval walls and walk if not do Canterbury Tales. There is a guided tour of the cathedral which I'd recommend. It's always difficult to assign an amount of time necessary to visit a place since interests vary so much. I'd suggest the hour's guided tour and then, perhaps, an additional 30 minutes. There are those, of course, who sail through the cathedral in less them 45 minutes.

We had lunch at the Weaver's House, which, I believe, is on the street you walk up from the train. We liked it so much that we went back for a late tea before leaving. We visited the Cathedral and then did a walk booked at the Tourist Info Center, and then we just walked around for awhile. We were there in early October, though.

»»Sunset in early November is around 16:30, so we will have approx 5.5 hours there.««

Is there any reason why you have to depart before the sun sets? I think a good way to complete a visit to Canterbury would be to attend Evensong at the cathedral, 17:30 on weekdays.

We did a day trip too, from London to Canterbury, and really enjoyed it. First stop was the tourist information office in town where we signed up for a guided walk. It was reasonably priced, went for about 2 hours I think and very interesting. We went into the Cathedral grounds but not inside the Cathedral.

There are probably details of the walks on the tourist website.

Kay

thanks for all your input. I don't think guided walking tours are offered in November; I've checked and didn't find any information. It'll be great if we can join a guided tour of the Cathedral; I looked at the website but there's no tour times listed. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

ron, evensong may be an option if we want to stay there longer. I have to see how my parents feel; they may be too tired by then.

Thanks for the restaurant suggestions as well.

Canterbury is a nice neat city albeit often overrun IME with French school groups there for a day - but there is a paucity of individual major sights/sites apart from the famous Cathedral and cathedral close with the posh private school in it - the town center is small and compact - you will have more than enough time there IMO and do not need to start as early even if you do not want. There walls are not all that impressive, being basically just one small stretch so do not think of a walled town like say York.

Since IMO at least there is not much to see in Canterbury other than the cathedral you may want to save money by taking the slower and I think much cheaper trains - trains that you can board from other London train termini that may be closer to your hotel.

At least I thought that the new higher speed Kent Sprinter or whatever they call the trains using the new Channel Tunnel Rail Link are significantly more expensive than the older trains.

PalenQ, out of curiosity, I looked up the slower train times & price. For the 3 of us, traveling same day r/t, the slower train will save us a total of 9GBP (£59 vs £50 for 3 ppl, taking advantage of same day return & group save discount). The travel time is 90 minutes.

Are you saying the Canterbury Roman Museum is not worth seeing at all?

for 9 quid I'd take the fast train.

No I am not saying anything about the museum - was not even there last time I was there so do not know about it - if it was there it was not a major sight - I have been in Canterbury dozens and dozens of times but not in past several years so maybe there is more there there now than I thought.

but it ain't no Bath, York, Oxford, Cambridge, Salisbury, Winchester, etc in terms of having a lot of sights and a nice old city - Canterbury to me is one of the least nice British cities I have been in - not to say it ain't nice however!

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-st...h-1892883.html

It can't be too much as this article talks about the Canterbury Council wanting to close it because of budget cuts - a major museum brings money into a town. But again I do not know - either was there during my many visits or is relatively new.

The Canterbury Roman Museum is pretty minimal - perhaps a 15 minute visit. As I remember the story, when they were clearing some of the rubble from WWII bombing, they came across a Roman mosaic tile floor. That's pretty much what you see.

Orders of magnitude less impressive than, say, Fishbourne Roman Palace near Chichester.

6 euros to peek at a miniscule bit of Roman tiles?

No there really ain't much ado about Canterbury IME than the Cathedral and its close - Canterbury Tales are fine but not a real sight but typical of the 'Experience' type places every British town has developed to extract tourists from their bucks - not to say that it may not be a swell think to experience and that I may also go there if going back to Canterbury.

If time stop by Chilham, accessible by local train en route to or from London - a fine old castle in a fine old village surrounded by fine old countryside.