Half-Term Road Trip Part 3: Jane Austen and Canterbury

 

Our final UK destination was Canterbury, but, since we were driving through "Jane Austen Country" (Bath, Steventon, Winchester, etc.) we wanted to stop and visit Chawton, the little village just outside of Alton where she spent roughly the last decade of her life, revising and publishing her novels.

 

We've had no mishaps with the van so far. We can't get enough of the countryside; it's still green and gorgeous. Often the country roads are lined with trees that overhang the road on both sides, forming a kind of green tunnel. Lots of sheep, hay bales, hedgerows, and these pheasants. They are fairly large and easy to spot in newly mown fields. Beautiful!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chawton is a tiny little village, but a magnet for Jane Austen fans. Chawton Cottage, where Austen lived with her mother and sister, is nevertheless surprisingly untouristy and unpretentious. It doesn't feel like a stuffy museum; instead, you get up close and personal with the sparse remains from Austen's life -- furniture, fabrics, pictures, letters. It's almost heartbreaking in its littleness and modesty.

 



 

 

 

 

 

This is the small writing desk on which Austen is reputed to have written/revised Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, Emma, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion. Wow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last stop in England, and jumping-off point for France, was Canterbury in Kent, the most southeast of all the counties. Canterbury is famous for various reasons, especially its great and ancient cathedral and the fact that it is home to the Archbishop, the highest office in the Church of England.

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We dropped off the van at Enterprise just in time and again with no mishaps. Since we had a late-night bus ride to Paris, we had to "kill time" in Canterbury. This was not a problem in this charming, still very medieval city. We had some delicious fish and chips, saw a Halloween-inflected performance of some of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, and curled up by a fire in a charming pub of the same name.

 

 

 

Stay tuned for the last installment!