We woke up in York and it was already a bit late. Sleep was okay, as it was a bit cool in our room. I turned the new-ish style radiator heater on in the room while we awoke and made some coffee.
I didn’t have time to type my notes, and we were supposed to have a whole day set aside to be in York, so I figured I could at least get an hour to type the blog for yesterday and upload some images.
We found what looked like a delightful all day breakfast place for £4.95! What a nice sounding deal! So we went in. There really wasn’t anyone around. Every table was deserted and the staff were nowhere to be seen. We waited around a while and eventually tentatively dinged the bell at the counter.
We were served by what seemed like the only staff there.
We set ourselves up on a table at the window. The full English breakfast was actually a decent size and we ate and I typed up yesterday’s blog.
I had finished typing my blog in about 10 or 15 minutes and turned around my computer to let Victoria read it. Great! Time to upload images!
Well… that didn’t work well. This breakfast place had no WiFi. No free WiFi in any nearby place, and my mobile service had 1 bar. This is in the middle of York, by the way.
So I tried for a few minutes and gave up, frustrated. We quit the restaurant, me in a bit of a huff, and proceeded to enjoy the city of York instead. I would upload the images later.
Well York was pretty indeed, but nothing was particularly interesting. It was a lot of prettied up common brand stores with some individual shops as well. Maybe we just needed a real coffee. The downtown didn’t seem that interesting.
We headed into the Cathedral and absorbed the views. There were many great photo opportunities here. Victoria took my camera to make sure we captured some that were important to her. Some duplicates as well.
We entered the crypt and saw the underground sights as well, which were kind of neat, including some kind of markings on the floor. [Victoria’s note: the rubber markings indicated the location of the old Roman and Norman walls that predated the cathedral.]
When we felt satisfied that our £12 admission was worth it, we left and found a Cornish pasty shop! Finally one that had them in stock! We bought one just in case we wouldn’t have the chance.
Deciding it was important to have a bit of it warm, we had a bite in front of a monument in a small park and then headed on, checking out shops and alleyways here and there.
I’m sure downtown York is lovely on a nicer day, when you feel better, but we had neither of those advantages. I did take quite a few photos however.
Once we had our fill, we went toward the car park, as I had not asked Victoria how much time she wanted to spend downtown, and I picked 2:30pm as our cutoff point. Seemed reasonable as we arrived at 11:30am downtown.
The train museum was the next destination. We headed toward that, through the windy streets of York, and found that there is free admission to the train museum, and only £10 to park for the day at the museum parking lot. That sounded like a great deal! Kind-of like a £5 admission to a huge area with many trains, demos of equipment, cross sections of steam engines, and examples of all kinds of trains.
We had a coffee and I spilled that, all over the service counter. Then Victoria checked out the gift shop looking for something for her dad and spilled toy trains all over the place. We were getting very spilly so we decided to leave. They were closing soon, anyway.
We left York and finally set out for our bed and breakfast, this time not an AirBnB but a proper B&B reserved through Expedia.
The trip took us through the Moors, and it was positively stunning. We were not at all prepared for the sights we saw, and I promise to share the footage once I’m back. You’ll definitely want to see it.
The car crested hills and the whole landscape unfolded below us, with rolling hills of heather and sheep. Some of them quite steep with the road winding back and forth down the hillside.
The views were just breathtaking and when the car finally passed the RAF base, we came to a junction and Google Maps told us to go left. We parked immediately after the turn where a small ice-cream truck and a few drivers were parked.
We grasped this opportunity to take some panoramic photos of the vistas. Hopefully those will come out nicely when stitched together. Since we saw someone else having ice-cream, we walked over to the truck, which had been idling for a few minutes now.
We had a lovely rhubarb and custard ice-cream as well as a 99 with a flakie in it! They were both wonderful ice creams! Such lovely, creamy and unique flavours. Even something as simple as vanilla can be so different.
It was at this point that a few sheep crossed our paths! Hi sheep!
After watching one of the sheep just squat and pee on the road in front of us. Gee thanks! We headed onward through many more twists and turns, and came out above an old railway, which Victoria photographed while I parked.
The landscape just kept showing us new wonders. We rolled into the Rowan Tree in Sleights and I parked the car. We met the owner of our B&B and apparently we’re the only ones staying here right now.
After dropping off our things we headed into Whitby proper this time. We had to get Victoria some Magpie’s famous fish and chips! They came highly recommended and they were certainly worth the trip!
On the way we saw a monument Canada had donated! It had a plaque in English and French which looked out over one of the most stunning sea views we have seen this trip.
Now I’m back in the B&B and writing this up before bed, actually on the day! (I’ve been a night behind for the past few.)
Now we can finally relax after I upload this one.
