This trip was a little different to other trips I’ve been on recently:
- It wasn’t with a minibus full of my wife’s colleagues.
- It wasn’t reached by minibus, but by train.
- It wasn’t in Georgia but in England.
Gothic ruins of Whitby Abbey
We were in England for a week to visit my ageing mother in York. I decided it would be interesting to make a day trip on one of those days and I chose Whitby for our destination, having recently read Dracula. The famous Count chose to land in England, at Whitby on his voyage from the Black Sea.
Bram Stoker’s Dracula
It would have been a much shorter trip to go to Scarborough, which has direct trains from York, but Whitby with a change in Middlesbrough has more to see.
When we arrived after a journey taking around 3 hours (Scarborough could have been reached in little over one hour), we headed first up the 199 steps to the ruined gothic Abbey on top of the hill. We didn’t go in the Abbey Grounds (£7.50 each seemed a little steep, when did England become so expensive?), but we did admire the view over Whitby and stumbled upon a wonderful pirate festival.
Pirate lass and view over Whitby sands
Click on the pirate photos to see the gallery.
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- The Pirate Puppeteer…at Whitby Tortuga Festival
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- Pirate Kiss “Selfie”
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- Friendly pirates take my wife hostage…
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- Pirate Ship afloat
As well as pirates there was a festival of street-choirs and lots of tourists. Whitby is steeped in history as a fishing port and where Captain James Cook was taken on as a Merchant Navy apprentice. The Gothic abbey and the Dracula connection make the town a mecca for goths, who can pick up jet jewellery and various gothic trinkets to add to their collections.
The Dracula Experience
As with many seaside destinations there are also the usual attractions of the British seaside: rock, sandcastles, the sand between your toes and the icy waters of the North sea for those brave enough to venture into the waters.
sandcastle
Yorkshire Baywatch
Khato braves the North Sea
sand between your toes, memories of beach holidays past
seagulls
greedy gulls home in on discarded meals
Another visitor to Whitby is the seagull. Unlike most birds the seagulls don’t fly away as you approach. They are on the lookout for choice titbits left by tourists and will happily dive onto an unguarded plate.
At the end of our trip we relaxed in a pub named “The Endeavour” after Captain Cook’s ship and Khato tried some English beer, to slake her well earned thirst.
“The Endeavour”
Are these the lucky Whitby Ducks, Hugh?
Khato enjoys half a pint of English beer
Did you by any chance come across any Whitby Lucky Ducks, Jim?
I have one from the 1980’s which was my one and only ever visit to Whitby.
I did see a store selling a lot of wooden ducks called “Woodstock”, I ‘ll add the photo to the post.
I’ve added a photo of the wooden ducks, are these what you mean, Hugh?
Hi Jim, no, the Whitby lucky duck is made of glass and is only about an inch in size. It comes in 12 different colours, one for each month of the year.
I didn’t see any glass ducks..just lots of jet jewellery, skull shaped gifts and the usual seaside ephemera…
Here you go Jim, I found this about them. I have the one for January.
http://luckyducks.tcchold.com/ducksint.html
Love Whitby – visited two years ago and enjoyed it very much. But we stayed in Scarborough and went by bus to Dracula and the Brontes!
It is a fascinating town and the pirate festival at the time made for colourful photos. We were staying in York visiting my ageing mother. Made a great day out.