Bram Stoker's Whitby

Our three-day weekend by the sea continued with a two-night stay in the town of Whitby. Bram Stoker's Dracula includes several key scenes based in Whitby, and because of that and the erie church and abbey ruins perched high up on a cliff,  it is a gothic teenager's dream! In fact, when researching bed & breakfasts, one weekend in October was all booked up thanks to the town's annual Gothic Festival. So the Whiby residents (and tourism board) definitely milk their Dracula connection!

St. Mary's Church and the Abbey ruins at the top of Whitby Cliff

To get to the abbey and church on the cliff, you have to walk up a stairway with 199 stone steps. We stopped a few times on our way up to take in and photograph the views of Whitby (and for me to catch my breath).

Whitby Pier as seen from stairstep #101 (or maybe it was step #103? or #98?)

We toured the inside of Saint Mary's Church before heading over to the Abbey.  I didn't know anything about the church before we arrived, but have since researched a bit about it. It was built in the 12th and 13th centuries and inside contains only pew-boxes that families had to purchase to use for services. I tried to find a picture of the pew boxes online as no photos were permitted inside the church, but alas, no good photos were found. Trust me, the pew boxes were interesting :-)

St. Mary's church and graveyard

The church and its graveyard are partially responsible for the town's popularity in all things goth. Take this quote from Bram Stoker's Dracula:

"For a moment or two I could see nothing, as the shadow of a cloud obscured St. Mary's Church. Then as the cloud passed I could see the ruins of the Abbey coming into view; and as the edge of a narrow band of light as sharp as a sword-cut moved along, the church and churchyard became gradually visible... It seemed to me as though something dark stood behind the seat where the white figure shone, and bent over it. What it was, whether man or beast, I could not tell."

St. Mary's graveyard looking toward Whitby

While there, we read about a much more recent and super-creepy occurrence that took place in this graveyard. In November 2012, a rainstorm eroded part of the cliff where St. Mary's and the Abbey is perched. Over the course of several days, as the cliff eroded, human remains tumbled out of their coffins in the graveyard and landed on the street below. Ewwwww!! The remains were collected, and re-interned farther away from the cliffside.

St. Mary's graveyard looking towards the Abbey

And now on to the Abbey! Yet another abbey destroyed by Henry VIII in the mid 16th century. The abbey ruins that we see today was originally built in 13th century, so it is actually younger that St. Mary's church next door! I found it interesting to learn that the British / Anglo-Saxon conversion from Paganism to Christianity can be traced back to the Synod of Whitby . I won't bore you with the details (as there are a lot of details), but if you want to learn more, click on the words underlined above. If you click that link, congratulations! You're a history geek like me :-) 

Whitby Abbey

Whitby Abbey and the Whitby coast

After our tour atop the cliff, we walked back down to the town (this time on the steep horse/donkey cobblestone ramp next to the stairway) and ambled along the shops and restaurants. I tried to get Bill to purchase some kippers from the smoked kipper shack run by the same family for more than 140 years, but he wasn't interested. Everyone told us if you go to Whitby, you have to eat the traditional fish & chips. It's like, THE place to eat fish & chips in all of England. We asked our BandB hostess where she would recommend we go and she told us to skip The Magpie (which is on tourist row and is overpriced and way too crowded) and head for the Royal Fishery in town. We noticed a line out the door at The Magpie, so we made our way to the Royal Fishery per her suggestion. We were seated at a table right away amongst all of the locals (we seemed to be the only tourists) and had a delicious and super-filling dinner of sustainably caught fish & chips. YUM!! 

Then, because we're such a wild and crazy couple, we walked back to our Bed and Breakfast and watched the 50th anniversary episode of Doctor Who. It doesn't get more British (or nerdy) than that, ladies and gentlemen!!

Whitby Abby - NOT MY PHOTO, it's from the English Heritage website

As a side-note, England experienced an awful storm yesterday. The storm hit the English northeast particularly hard. The storm, coupled with an exceedingly high tide flooded most of Whitby's coastline as well as its seaside homes and shops. I hope everyone in Whitby recovers quickly and am very thankful we hadn't planned our mini-vacation this weekend.

Scarborough Faire... without the Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, or Thyme

The weekend before thanksgiving I made Bill take Friday off and we set off for a long weekend by the sea. Our first stop? Scarborough! It's only a two hour drive from home, but we hadn't had a chance to visit the English seaside town yet. Although Scarborough doesn't have a pier, it does have a tourist-y area like fisherman's wharf in Monterey or pier 39 in San Francisco. 

Have you been to Scarborough Faire?

If we had visited in the summertime, everything would have been open for business and it would have been packed with tons of English weekend warriors. But we arrived on a drizzly, cold November and the faire (carney-like rides), casinos (arcades with skeeball, pinball, etc.), and food shacks were mostly closed. That kind of stuff doesn't interest Bill or I anyway, so we really enjoyed looking around without fighting the crowds. We had lunch at a small tea house and took in the sights by the sea. The weather, while not quite enjoyable, provided for some dramatic sky views. The low tide was so low, all of the boats in the harbor were literally resting on a thin film of water in the sand. 

Scarborough marina

After an hour or so of walking around we were pretty cold, wet, and miserable, so we decided to make our way up to Scarborough castle. The castle is perched on the cliff behind where these photos were taken, but not accessible from the seaside - all the better to protect your castle from the invading hoards!

Scarborough lighthouse

I drove from the seaside up to the castle, and per usual in this country, we took a wrong turn and got lost in a maze of confusing, small, one-way downtown English streets. We ended up seeing a sign to Whitby (our next destination) and decided to just head straight for Whitby as the rain was coming down in sheets again (and, truth be told, the driver [me] was a bit flustered).

We will definitely to go back to Scarborough on a dryer day and spend all of our time exploring their castle ruins. It looked pretty magnificent from afar! 

Scarborough Castle (NOT my photo - it's from the English Heritage website)

Our First Thanksgiving Overseas

Happy Belated Thanksgiving!!

We celebrated Thanksgiving twice this year. Bill took Thursday off, and we puttered around the house & walked downtown to visit the Christmas Market (140 craft & food booths set up to sell Christmas presents and tasty food). On our way home, we stopped at the local butcher's shop to pick up something to make for the two of us as a Thanksgiving treat. We knew we were having turkey with all of the trimmings on Saturday, so instead of the usual fare, we picked up and roasted a Yorkshire pheasant. 

The pheasant was pleasant (ha!), but pheasant is all dark meat, so not my favorite. But it was okay and we will probably make it again sometime while we're here. At one point I noticed Bill working on a piece of meat, and I figured he had gotten a small bone along with his bite of meat. He spat out the offending bit, and low and behold - it was buckshot! A friend here tells us that it's good luck to find buckshot on your plate, so let's hope it's true!

Pheasant buckshot

On to the communal Thanksgiving Feast on Saturday...

Some friends of ours rent a gorgeous house that is owned by an official Lord & Lady. Their house is wonderful  for entertaining, which they love to do.  The dining room came with a long table that seats 20 or so people - and they had it decorated beautifully. The Thanksgiving group included Americans, Aussies, and Brits; I think there was a total of 36 hungry mouths in attendance. 

Dinning room

Bill and I brought four loaves of homemade bread, his Mom's scalloped oysters (but we couldn't find oysters, so he used live muscles and it mostly worked), and roast veg (carrots, parsnips, and cauliflower). Others brought all the other fixin's - two turkeys, ham, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, two types of stuffing, many types of veg, several variations on cranberry sauce, and so on. 

Kitchen prep pre-feast

Minutes before we ate EVERYTHING IN SIGHT

And if we weren't stuffed enough, there were also plenty of items for dessert. One couple made seven pies (!!) and we also had fudge, three pans of sticky toffee pudding, toppings (ice cream, whipping cream, pouring cream, and toffee sauce), and various after dinner drinks.

And they shall eat pie (and fudge, custard, sticky toffee pudding...)

The sunset (at 4:15, as we get less than eight hours of sunlight this time of year) from their backyard was spectacular! It reminds me that, although times may be challenging, we still have a lot to be thankful for.  

"Thanksgiving" sunset