I only live a fifteen minute drive from Canterbury but I have only visited the Canterbury Tales once and that was about five years ago.
About The Canterbury Tales For those of you that have never heard of The Canterbury Tales, they are a collection of stories that were written in the 14th century by Geoffrey Chaucer. Inside this attraction, the collection of tales are told by the pilgrims who are on a pilgrimage from London to Canterbury to visit the shrine of Saint Thomas Beckett which is in Canterbury Cathedral. Chaucer wrote the tales in Middle English with two of them in prose and the rest in verse and in The Canterbury Tales attraction they are still spoken in this way.
Location The Canterbury Tales is located in the middle of the City of Canterbury and about a five minute walk from Canterbury Cathedral. The train station is about a ten minute walk away and the main bus station is a five minute walk away.
Opening Times This attraction
is open daily from 10am until 4.30pm and disabled facilities are provided.
Cost Admission costs for this attraction are as follows:
Adult - £7.75 Child - £5.75 (5-15 years) OAP - £6.75 Student - £6.75 (student ID will be asked for)
Group booking are also available and as long as they are pre booked, you can get a reduced rate on the entrance fees.
Inside The Attraction Once you are inside and have paid your admission costs, each visitor is given an audio pack which consists of a player and a set of headphones. The idea is that the audio pack takes you on your tour of the Canterbury Tales. There are a selection of languages to choose from such as French, Spanish, Dutch, German, Italian and Japanese and of course English.
Each tale is divided into it own room so there is the Tabard Inn where visitors can see the life like models of Chaucer and all his pilgrims. Here you will hear how the pilgrims all got together to embark on the pilgrimage to the Shrine of St Thomas Becket. Moving on from this room, you will then be told each of the pilgrims tales.
The other rooms consist of the Knight's Tale, the Miller's Tale, the Wife of Bath's Tale, the Nun's Priest's Tale, the Pardoner's Tale and the Shrine of Saint Thomas. Once you enter each room, your audio pack will begin to play the relevant commentary for that tale.
Tours are being started constantly, around every 5 minutes. As we entered the first bit, the Tabard Inn, the group that had entered before us were just making their way into the new room. The whole tour is done in this way, each moving around into the various rooms which I felt was quite a good idea as it means more tours can happen at once rather than all visitors having to wait for the previous tour to finish.
Each room has been reconstructed to look as it would have done it the 14th century. Also in each room are life like figures which tell you the tale. Each figure is dressed in 14th century clothing. In the rooms there are areas which light up in time with the commentary, so as each figure speaks, they are lit up and anything they talk about that is on the set is lit up to get your attention which again I thought was a great idea as it really helped to tell the tale.
At the end of the tour, which lasts about 45 minutes, you can then view a reconstruction of the shrine of St Thomas Becket.
On your way to the exit, you walk through a long corridor which has been recreated to look like a 14th century market place and here you can buy various souvenirs from all over the world.
At the end of the corridor there is a large gift shop which offers the usual souvenirs such as pens, postcards, magnets etc.
Summary I really enjoyed visiting this attraction and think that it makes a great attraction for children to learn about history because of the style and layout of this attraction. I felt that the way it was done almost brought the history of the tales to life. Some of the tales were funny and all of them were entertaining in their own way. I liked the idea of the audio tour as it means you don't have to worry about listening to someone on the tour and having all the other visitors talking over the top of them. I One downfall was that occasionally the signal went a bit crackly on the audio pack and you would have to move the pack around to pick up the signal again which eventually (after 45 minutes) left me with slight arm ache. I would highly recommend a trip to this attraction. Canterbury is a very historical City and I feel that this attraction brings to life the Canterbury Tales. A great day out for the whole family.
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I remember visitng this place, and I didn't much enjoy it. I though it was too expensive, the tour felt a bit rushed (and was too short for the money!), my audio wand thingy didn't work very well and was heavy to hold up all the time, and too much emphasis was on the shop. I spent more time queueing to get in than I did on the tour!
arnoldhenryrufus 26.02.2008 19:19
will have to take a look next visit to the area - lyn x
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Feb 26th, 2008
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