Whitby (photo dump 1 of 2)

 

Although I couldn't explain the reason and there certainly wasn't a direct correlation, quirky Whitby reminded me of Boulder, CO. It had no mountains, no university, no atmospheric research center ... but it had a ruined abbey, lots of tourism, and a cult following for its association with the Dracula tale. Author Bram Stoker was reputedly inspired by Whitby Abbey during his stay in the town. Conveniently, it is/was a great source for sparkly anthracite coal that was made into (among other things) jet jewelry, and there were lots of shops in town playing to that goth vibe. When visitors in Newcastle asked us where we were headed next and we told them Whitby, they all smiled knowingly and told us we'd really enjoy the town. (Indeed, we did.) To me, all the towns we visited were new, and each had a unique character, but Whitby had "character" in a sense that travel brochures would understand. 

Our first day off had rain, which we characterized as an inconvenience, not a disaster, as we dressed in our foul-weather gear and headed off to explore. In fact, we turned some of the moodiness to our advantage in the photo department.

People have been using this headland for at least 3,000 years. St Hild had some sort of an abbey here in the 7th century; the site was an abbey in the 12th century and a church in the 13-15th century.

Another view of the ruined cathedral -- massive

                                       

The rain was perfectly moody for a visit to this old graveyard. It was fun to learn that our second officer was a fan of visiting old graveyards, as she told me when she saw this photo.

Looking back down the way we had come. The hill is titled "200 Steps" and there are periodic inserts along the climb in Roman numerals to tell you how far you'd come and how far you have yet to go, but my lying step counter only gave me 2 flights for this climb!

One of many lovely cobbled streets lined with shops and pubs. 

If you look closely at the street in the previous picture, you'll notice that the edges of the road are laid with 2 rows of different-coloured cobblestones. In this closeup you'll see that they're bright blue. Similar stones pave the cobbled streets of Old San Juan; those weird stones caused so much confusion when they were used as ballast on ships from Europe, then reused to pave the streets of Old San Juan in Puerto Rico and made the archaeologists wonder where the stones had come from as there was no local source. I wonder if these stones in Whitby come from a similar source? The rainy day really enhanced their colours.

Another cobbled street lined with two rows of blue stones

Part of those 200 steps up the hill to the cathedral

Another random street in Whitby (no cobbles this time)

The bars have interesting names easy to portray on a sign; perhaps from before the days when everyone could read? 

Beloved Galeon, that has carried us so many thousands of nautical miles to so many adventures, docked in the harbour on the River Esk.

After our wet sloppy long walk, we settled in a local pub for a beer and to watch the tide go out. Many of the boats here have twin keels so they can stand upright when the water leaves them ... high and dry (guess where that expression came from!) And they need it; tides range up to 6 meters/19 feet here.

Okay, just to prove we don't always hang out at pubs, here's a lovely coffee shop we frequented in town on our days off.

Admittedly after a while our European tour started to feel like "castles and cathedrals"