Day One Hundred

When Bob and I travel we try to eat a good breakfast, skip lunch and have an early dinner. That way, we get the most walking and sightseeing in as possible. This tends to have another effect - the more we exercise, the more we can eat at dinner! It's great to be able to go to a nice restaurant and order a bottle of wine with our meal and actually finish the food and the wine. Tonight was no exception. Had a marvelous full English breakfast and then walked from our hotel (The Grange in York which I highly recommend)through Bootham Bar and right into York Minster. The sun was just coming in through the stained glass windows on the east side and we were able to have the whole place to ourselves. Very peaceful and awe inspiring as York Minister is probably one of the most sun lit, expansive cathedrals in all of Europe. It feels so modern and yet is so ancient. It's foundations are Roman and Norman which you can see by touring the below ground level excavations. We then spent the rest of the day shopping and museum hopping. We also got to walk some of the ramparts and climbed Cifford's Tower. I was able to snap a wonderful photo of York Minister and the walled area of York from the top of the Tower. The only purchases we made today were confined to a book Bob bought for the plane ride home and I was enticed by a shop keeper to sample some fudge which I was gawking at through the shop window and ended up with a couple of pounds of different flavors to bring home to my hommies.

With my package of sweet indulgence under my arm, we walked down to an Italian restaurant for our last dinner in York before heading off to London tomorrow morning. Great meal, great bottle of wine, a few chunks of fudge, and we were ready to get back to the hotel. We were the only ones in the restaurant, as it was still pretty early for diners on European dinner schedules, except for a little old Englishwoman sitting behind us who came in with her shopping bags and had a treacle pudding and a hot chocolate. Just before she left, putting on her overcoat, scarf and hat, she came over to apologize for intruding, asking us if we were on our honeymoon. I smiled heartily and informed her that we had actually been married for 30 years. She said she had been watching us, even though she could only see Bob's back, but had a full view of my face as Bob and I talked during our meal. We were both very flattered and talked with her for several minutes before she excused herself and left for home - a native Yorkshire woman. How wonderful that she shared her observation with us.

Day Ninety-Eight and Ninety-Nine

I didn't anticipate how easily we adapted to driving on the opposite side of the road than we do in the States. I experienced a bit of intrepidation when we decided to actually rent a car and drive around Scotland but we did just fine, especially with Bob at the wheel. I was the navigator with reading glasses at the ready and map neatly folded in my lap to display just the section of the map that we would find ourselves in at any one time. We did end up back in Edinburgh (by accident) and were pleasantly surprised when we made it through with no problems. After that, our think our confidence levels were pretty high. The only thing I didn't want to do was try to drive at night. So, with that in mind, we headed toward York with one night in between without any prior reservation for sleeping arrangements. If we saw a sign for something we thought we might like to see, there we went and when we hit Berwick on Tweed for lunch, we ended up at an Indian restaurant - Villa Spice - that was absolutely incredible. Bob had Sag Duck with saffron rice, I had Bhuan Gnosht and garlic Nan. After enjoying our find, we walked the town a bit. The whole journey was a blast and after leaving Berwick we ended up taking mostly coastal roads, we had no idea that the impending sunset would be so beautiful along the shoreline. As the sky grew darker, we decided to look for a bed and breakfast so that we wouldn't be driving at night. We pulled into the Boat House Inn right along the shoreline of the very small village we found ourselves in and were told that there was a bed and breakfast right down the road, within sight. So, we pulled up, knocked on the door and were greeted by a delightful couple who had just returned from the Dominican Republic after a two week vacation. Hazel was so cute, a bit nervous that she had her vacation laundry drying everywhere, but she and Maddy were more than accommodating. It was a great little place, very clean and every need was anticipated by the stock of items in the room. The shoreline was just across the street and we had a clear view of the two little fishing boats anchored just out past the surf. The full English breakfast we had in the morning was the best yet. We appreciated their friendliness and all the suggestions they made for our drive south the York. When we told Hazel and Maddy about the nice dinner we had at the Boat House Inn and how friendly and talkative the owner and his wife were, they were so surprised as the owner is not usually so friendly. We talked and talked while we had our dinner at the bar and found it rather revealing when the owner, who was also the bartender, likened he and his wife to Basil Faulty and his wife. It was so true though. Bob and I laughed and laughed when he and his wife had a couple of interactions while we were there. Very nice couple and great food. We pulled away the next morning satisfied that we had experienced the real England.

We took our time getting to York via some very fun backroads - barely one lane - and when one of the roads we chose to travel on ended up diverted, we had a late lunch stop at a place called the Carpenter Arms Inn. I'm going to have to set the guy straight who said English food is relatively bad, because we have had some incredible meals of which today's was one of the very best. Bob started with a Yorkshire blue cheese and walnut salad and had baked salmon on top of a potato mash for his entree. I had a pumpkin curry soup that was so creamy, with just a hint of curry so that the pumpkin taste was still the dominating flavor, followed by Mount Grace roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and small, baked new potatoes, all swimming in a heady beef gravy. I don't know what it is, but the potatoes they grow here are so very tasty and extremely creamy. We were very happy campers. So onward we went on our journey to York, following the signs to Rievaulx Abbey, one of my very favorite places. After winding our way through the up and down roads of the Yorkshire Dales, we came upon Rievaulx sitting in the beauty of the small, narrow Rye Valley, full of trees adorned with the colors of Fall, the green of the pastures resplendent with grazing black faced sheep, all through a soft foggy mist. It was magical, as Rievaulx usually is. At it's height, the Abbey housed over 600 monks and the extensive ruins make you feel as though, if you stood still enough, you could still hear their chants and prayers. It's humbling to see the skeletal remains of the this once impressive community, with the holy water vessels still protruding from the walls. Just touching them with my hand as though I was dipping my fingers in their contents, sent shivers up my spine. I love it there and could repeat the visit many, many more times. I would be content to know my ashes could rest there someday.

We had about an hour at Rievaulx as the park was closing and dusk was upon us. I ended up driving out of the Rye Valley, up and down through the Dales once again but this time it was dark. It was quite an experience and now I feel like a seasoned English countryside driver. We made it easily into York, found a hotel quickly and walked the streets near the Minster. There is so much to do here and I'm looking forward to showing Bob around in the morning.