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)