Canterbury

I'm still returning to my holiday memories on this gloomy rainy day, as I started sorting out my photos. Towards the end of our holiday in August, we went to Canterbury in Kent for a few days to attend a wedding. I've been there a couple of times before, but now we had more time to explore the town. My partner went to the university there, so he was my guide. The weather happened to be really lovely while we were there, which was extremely lucky and we had such a nice time.

Canterbury is a very pretty historical town and of course the great centrepiece is the Canterbury Cathedral. We stayed at a quaint Medieval hotel just by the Cathedral gates. There are many beautiful buildings, canals and parks and the town is quite vibrant yet somehow calming.

My favourite place in Canterbury will have to be The Goods Shed by the Canterbury West railway station. It's a farmers market, food hall and restaurant and a nice place to spend some time in. I bought some seriously good local vegetables and Kentish cider to take home with me. They also had a craft beer bottle shop and bar, which happened to have one of my favourite beers from Copenhagen on tap, lucky again!

Here are some of my photos from Canterbury. I hope you like them.

Winchester Real Ale and Cider Festival 2015

Last Friday I paid a visit to the Winchester Real Ale and Cider Festival. It was the day of the solar eclipse, and by the time I got to leave work and take the train towards Winchester, the sun had come back with vengeance. At that time it was extraordinarily bright over the South Downs. My mobile phone picture of course doesn't do it, or the scenery, any justice. 

Wichester is a nice old town to visit and they have a spectacular cathedral. I quickly strolled through the town centre, as I had few moments to spare before the start of the festival.

Then finally at the festival I of course started tasting some half pints of real ale. Once again there was an overwhelming choice of local, and less local, real ales and ciders. However I didn't drink any cider this time, how shocking! The most interesting ale in my opinion was the Watercress Best by the Itchen Valley brewery. Yes, there was indeed watercress in that beer and it could be tasted. What could be better for a VegHog! Watercress is a big thing in Hampshire and there are many local growers, so it's a very nice touch to add it into local beer as well.

Here is the list of the ales I tasted (brewery's name mentioned first):

Dancing Man: Congo Driftwood 4,3 %

Flowerpot: Spring Loaded 4,0 %

Itchen Valley: Watercress Best 4,2 %

Langham: Aegir 7,5 %

Loch Ness: Hoppy Ness 5,0 %

Longdog: Kismet 4,5 % and Lamplight Porter 5,0 %

Rusty Prop: Flugtag 4,7 %

Staggeringly Good: VelociRapture 6,5 %

Can't wait for the next local beer festival!

Your VegHog