CANTERBURY — Today is the day I said goodbye to Grafty Green and hello to Canterbury. After another lazy start to the day I entered Canterbury as the destination into the SatNav and discovered Canterbury was only forty minutes away so I got out the map and decided to head south to Folkestone. Got there shortly after noon, found a car park, and headed for the seashore.

The weather wasn’t wonderful so it wasn’t surprising that the beach was deserted. I took a few photos, had some lunch, and headed back to the car. It was nearly 1:00 p.m. which was the check-in time for the hotel so I decided to head straight for Canterbury. Except I got side-tracked on the way by the Battle of Britain Museum at Hawkinge.

The museum had quite a few examples of Spitfires and Hurricanes, some of which were used in the film Battle of Britain. They had an awful lot of aircraft engines recovered from downed British and German aircraft. Each collection of exhibits detailed as much of the history of the aircraft and pilots as possible. Displayed across five buildings there was even a V1 doodlebug. There was far too much to read in just one visit. Unfortunately, photography was not allowed within the museum.

Finally ended up outside the hotel in Canterbury at 4:00 p.m. After unloading my luggage into my room I drove around to the car park I have to use (the hotel doesn’t have any parking of its own) and walked back to the hotel. On the way back I stopped into the Marlowe Theatre (almost opposite the hotel—the hotel advertises booking your intermission drinks!) and bought a ticket for the Saturday night show.