We arrived in England early in the morning on Tuesday, watching the white cliffs of Dover from the deck of our ferry. As our drivers needed to have a nine-hour break we visited Canterbury. It is a city of a great historical importance for the whole country. St. Thomas lived there, he was proposed to become the Bishop there. St. Thomas agreed knowing that the future conflict with the ruler, a king and also a close friend, was inevitable. We got to know the whole history of the town and cathedral. 

On the next day we went for a walk around London. For lots of us it was the first time in England’s capital city. We saw Buckingham Palace, famous Big Ben and at the end we entered the National Gallery. We could see Van Gogh’s or Monet’s paintings, which I liked the most.

On the third day, as we arrived in London we had an opportunity to visit the British Museum. It is a really huge building with over 8 million exhibits inside! However, I didn’t have much time to look at them closely because I was in rush to admire other exhibitions in the museum.  Among the exhibits I found Rosette Stone, The Treasure of Sutton Hoo and even… a rusty baseball cap!

After this visit we took the cruise on the River Thames to Greenwich. The member of the crew shared some information with us about bridges and buildings that we were passing by. I saw Millennium Bridge, London Bridge and many famous buildings starting with Big Ben, the Shard, the Globe and many others. 

The next day we spent in Shakespeare’s Birthplace. We learned that Shakespeare’s father was a glovemaker and in their times only men were allowed to wear leather gloves. We could also visit the room where the famous writer was born. Then on Saturday we went to see the Globe, the theatre where Shakespeare’s plays are still played. We saw the historical stage. We also took the tube to get to the Natural History Museum which is full of different exhibits such as diamonds, rubies. I also liked the colourful butterflies. 

In the evening we attended the Mass in the Brampton Oratory. It looked so different than in Poland. The most unusual and strange was that the “parish announcements” were given in the middle of the Mass. However, a nice surprise was the church choir. They sang beautifully, it was breath-taking. I wish we had it in our country. Finally we travelled by tube once again, this time we were heading to 221B Baker Street, unfortunately not all of us could make it as we had to start our journey back to Poland. We spent 24 hours on our coach coming back to our country. 

Łucja Banyś