Yorkshire Seaside

Doing a little time travel back to the pre-London portion of our trip.  On Thursday we drive through the moors to get to two seaside towns - Robin Hood's Bay and Whitby.

Robin Hood's Bay is known for being very picturesque.  It's built at the bottom of a steep  incline.  All the houses are snuggled up close to each other with narrow twisted alleyways leading out to the water.

Beautiful - but packed with tourists!!  And ultimately it's pretty small.  At one point in our planning I was looking for our accommodation in this area and I'm glad I didn't find anything because I think we would have been bored if we stayed here for the week.  Although we certainly would have given our glutes a work out going up and down that steep hill every day.

Next stop - Whitby.  Again, picturesque town by the sea but on a larger scale with many more shops and restaurants.  Bill and I got our bearings the old fashioned way - with a map.

This is where Bram Stoker wrote Dracula.  Lots of people come here to celebrate and be goth.  We came to see our old buddy John!!  John was one of the Jedi Knights quiz team back at the Victoria.  He lives in Whitby so he showed us around.

This is Crabby Corner where the kids all fish for crabs.

This is Whitby Abbey.

These are the 199 steps that lead up to the Abbey from the town.  Stoker wrote about these in Dracula and it's traditional to count them as you climb even though there are little markers pin roman numerals every 10 steps.

The steps helped us work up an appetite.  We went out to dinner with John and his new girlfriend.  They went out dancing after while Bill and I had to drive back through the moors in the dark rain.  There are no lights, the road is barely wide enough for two cars and very little signage but we managed to get back to Hutton-le-Hole without incident.

It was fun to explore the coastal towns but even better to see John again!