The day started lovely and after a great full Breakfast at the B&B we were off to downtown York to meet our tour group….only problem is or was—that we had difficulty finding the location of the tour…

Now you have to understand that places in their old town can have multi-level names…like the area, the square and the streets not to mention major churches and abbeys and the like in the area…..we finally established we were in the right area, hooked up with some people who were going too and then set down……the driver was a bit late due to traffic into York…but we finally got it all together and were ON THE ROAD AGAIN.

As you might have noticed the English Countryside is full of churches—many older than even me….it makes for interesting viewing.

and then there are the sheep–white, white with black face, black all over…long horn, short horn, no horn….they’re everywhere and more and they make up a lot of the view and even more of the economy

and the yellow stuff—we call it canola—you know the oil . Again it makes up a lot of countryside and economy…not to mention being a major part of my allergy make it—as a 2nd cousin of ragweed it makes me sneeze and snuffle and grumble rude words under my breath.

and we transgressed off the beaten path were everything is made of stone—and if I was really smart (which as you know I’m not) I could tell you what part of the country I was in by just viewing some of those hard escapees from the earth.

and one can’t forget that placed strategically about the country are little gems of existence PUBS—most with interesting names….even more with a great sign with the name on it and that’s not going into the food (most) and DRINK (all) seem to have available until about 11 pm.

Our first stop—a place on the road below in Kilburn–home of the famous White Horse  which overlooks the village and the Vale of York.

The huge horse was built by local school children–we only viewed it from below—but there is a an escarpment foot path that allows you to see it lose up and personal.

dogs while they may not register high on the economy side they do register high on the many of them in Britain and then some….they’re everywhere.

AND Ireland isn’t the only place that’s green…

Next stop:  the lovely little town of Helmsy

This is a market town with lots of those Greystone houses.

It lies in a hollow of the River Rey at the edge of the York moors

IT HAS A quant ruins of a castle (12-13th c) nearby as well

And this hot Italian will Pour your coffee.

Then it was into the North York Moors with its attractive steep sided valleys that break up the mass.

The land is full of moorland villages, early Christian Crosses and the ruins of abbeys are scattered about.

While the Cleveland Way circles the northern edges of the park.

there’s a bench where I’m taking the picture from and our guide explained to us that he often comes here on his days off and reads.

then it was Whitby where we had 3 hours of free time, with options to climb the 199 steps to view Whitby Abbey (inspiration for Dracula by Bram Stoker.

or we could visit the Captain Cook Museum, enjoy the beach, the waterfront and fishing port

Lots of places to shop for everything from souvenirs to Whitby jets…and don’t forget the Gothic fashion .

Whitby is also noted for it’s locally caught fish & chips at the Magpie Café.

The resort and harbor are picturesque and stand in the mouth of the River Esk and the North Moors National Park.

It has been (and still is) a fishing village for hundreds of years…it was also at one point a whaling port

There are terraces for the fishermen’s cottages beneath the East Cliff and there is still a fishing fleet

It was here at the Synod of Whitby in 663AD, that the divided Church of England accepted the authority of the Catholic Church.

We didn’t make it up to the remains of the Abbey on the East Cliff.  You can see the 13th c building (first abbey was 657 built by St. Hilda and it was at this first Abbey that a monk–Caedmon wrote the song which is considered to mark the beginning of English Lit.  and a cross commemorates him at St. Mary’s.  All this is reached by 199 steps…with large landings for when the coffins were carried up here for funerals…they needed a big space to put them down every so often.)

There is also the home of Captain John Smith (who lived here as a young man and a museum of local history.

But our time at Whitby came to a close….unfortunately I forgot where we were suppose to meet the bus and so held everybody up–unusual for me and very embarrassing.

Next stop Grosmont to drop off passengers to take a ride on the NY Moors Railway.  Susi and I opted out of that we would be spending lots more time on a train.  Grosmont is a village.  There was a priory established here in the 12th c.  It continued on until Henry VIII started with his divorces an dissolved the monasteries in the 16th c.  The village was established in 1830 when the Whitby Pickering Railway was buit.  by the 1860s it was involved in iron ore extraction.

We picked them up in Goathland Railway Station

This station might be more familiar to you if I tolk you that it was the location for Hogsmeade Station in the Harry Potter movies.

Goathland was also the fictional village of Aidensfield in the BBC TV series HEARTBEAT.

So saying goodbye to our furry friends we headed back to York.

and our wonderful B&B with large rooms, great breakfasts and fun people….York B+B.