The Canterbury Tales Experience - Review

Back to last Saturday morning now, after our hearty breakfast we headed back into Canterbury proper, had a complete nightmare trying to park the car (eventually settling for a very tight spot right outside the city walls)...it was raining, it was windy, the whole place was *still* packed with foreign students, but this time all decked out in various eye-straining colours of cagoule...we followed the tiny map on the back of our 50% off voucher (you get one when you pay to get into the Cathedral) being battered by the wind -

- and, huddling (when necessary) underneath our umbrella, joined the back of the small queue, which (despite being hearteningly diminutive) didn't move for half an hour)...

Being stood next to this sign, after a while, began to make one wonder if (perhaps) a half-hour queue in an on/off torrential downpour to experience the "smells of Medieval England" might not actually have been the wisest of decisions...Anyway, we persisted (heaven only knows how long one would have to wait on a pleasant day in high tourist season), and were finally granted admittance to the extremely cramped entrance room -

- where some colourful characters were waiting to welcome you, we coughed up our entrance fee, handed our commentary batons and were warned that the first room was going to be extremely dark, then bumbled collectively (with a group of about fifteen people) into the darkness ahead -

- and they certainly weren't kidding, it was pitch black apart from the (pretend) embers of a fire (until the "sun" rose through the "window") and the door sprang open inviting us into the next area -

- which, I was slightly saddened to discover, had a strong aroma of urine (this, disappointingly, being the only evidence of the aforementioned "Medieval smells" (that I noticed anyway), and I can manage to recreate that experience (in modern times) by getting in the lift up to the library in Redhill town centre, thank-you-very-much)-

- they explained their clever (and highly realistic) smell away by introducing ladies emptying their bed pans from above with a loud splashing noise...nice...anyway, I don't wish to ruin the experience or the story (as on the whole it was rather enjoyable) so just a couple more pictures (very hard to shoot in there as firing the flash was frowned upon and it was extremely dark), the stories are animated by a combination of lighting changes, very simple animatronics -



- and the odd automatic door, before (all too quickly) we found ourselves walking out into the traditional brightly lit exit gift shop -

- where 30 different versions of the book were on sale, oh and a huge amount of touristy tat (just for good measure)...I suppose the whole thing took us about half an hour in all (so we actually queued for about the same amount of time as we were in there), the language they used was modern English but with a medieval twist (they do have a special version for young kids, just so they don't get too confused or upset by all the sexual references - there are rather a lot) and actually, it's well worth the visit (but do try and get hold of a voucher, as it seems quite expensive for the amount of time you are in there otherwise)...the good thing is that off the back of this experience I am now tempted to attempt the book (Flyingpops had been forced to study it at school, so I felt a bit left out in that regard), if you want a summing up - consider it an excellent 'introduction' to the text, as when I picked up the book I realised it was going to be another Robinson Crusoe first edition-type read - i.e. enjoyable, but rather challenging...