Monday May 30 2022
Our holiday officially started in Harrogate, but as it was a Rail and Coach holiday as far as we were concerned it started in Lowestoft on a sunny Monday morning.
We started our journey with Anglian Rail as far as Norwich where we changed to East Midlands Rail diesel car, I was surprised it was rattling along at nearly 90mph at times.
This took us to Peterborough for our second change, this time it was Northern Rail and off to Leeds, for some reason this train managed to get behind a slower service so we were 15 minutes late getting to Leeds, just enough to miss our connection to Harrogate, but not a problem as the trains run every half hour, it was just a matter of finding out which platform would be used. Needless to say it was outside and it had started raining.
It was only a short walk for the station in Harrogate to our Hotel, The Crowne Plaza,
we were on the 5th. floor with a good view out over the rooftops(sorry about the reflections)
but the hotel itself is 11 floors high. You can see a long way from the fop floor, we did go for a look. When we arrived we met our tour leader in the hotel foyer just by chance as we weren’t due to meet until 6pm. for the official introduction and then dinner.
Tuesday 31 May 2022
Tuesday morning and at 9am. we were boarding a coach for our first outing, the weather was not good, overcast and drizzle. We didn’t have far to go,just outside Harrogate is the RHS gardens of Harlow Carr and as we arrived the rain stopped. The gardens are very impressive and I think we went in 30 minutes before they opened the gates to the general public which was good. I took several pictures so they are a bit smaller but will enlarge if you click on them.
Today lunch was taken on the run as we re-joined the coach at 1130am. to travel to York so we bought 2 meal boxes from Betty's café and Tea Rooms, a famous Yorkshire company with several outlets. If you haven’t booked you normally have to join a queue outside the door. It turned out that one box between the two of us would have been sufficient,
We arrived early in York so we had a bit of time to look at some of the old town walls before meeting our walking guide. We also spotted a couple of geese happily munching grass by the bus stop.
By now the weather was much nicer and following our guide we crossed the River Ouse and made our way to the park which is where you can see the town walls built on the remains of the old Roman walls with a good example of a Multangular tower, nearby was the site of a medieval St Leonard’s Hospital from just after the Normal Conquest.
A little further into the park are the remains of St Mary’s medieval Abbey which predates the present Abbey and even that is built on top of Roman foundations
Our tour continued into the town where we visited Ask Italian, not to eat but because its in The Grand Assembly Rooms. No one batted an eyelid as a group of 20 people came in to look at the place.
We followed the tour with a trip to York Cathedral where we visited the Under Croft, if you do visit the Cathedral its well worth making sure you go down here as its been turned into a museum with a section of glass floor, below the floor you can see where the Cathedral was built on top of Roman foundations. This was discovered when they had to underpin the cathedral foundations to stabilise the structure.
Of course the Cathedral is just as impressive above ground with its high roof
It’s also home to some interesting clocks including this Astronomical one which was reading the right date,day and time, I can only assume the other readings were correct.
This completed our trip to York and we headed back to Harrogate by train and walked from the station to our hotel for Dinner.
Wednesday 1 June 2022
Today a slightly earlier start and we are off to Whitby by coach firstly to visit the ruins of Whitby Abbey, other than saying they are ruins there isn’t much to say about
even the museum was rather underwhelming but we did have a nice lunch at the YMCA café and there is a good view over Whitby.
The Church was far more interesting with its boxed pews, some of which were owned and some rented. There is even one for the wayward ladies of the town.
Originally this was the only church in Whitby and as the town rapidly expanded the church was somewhat crowded, so they installed not one but two balconies around the walls and could then accommodate over 200 worshipers.
From the North West corner of the church yard there is a set of steps running all the way down into the town, beside the steps is a cobbled steep path running down, its so steep that in recent years they have installed steps for the steepest section at the bottom, this was for use by both people and donkeys. At several points on the way down paths run off to the left to service houses built on the hill side.
The steps from the churchyard are on the left as you look at this photograph and the Donkey Road on the right with the few modern steps up against the side of the steps to the church. There are supposedly 199 steps up to the church.
In the old town we visited the Lifeboat Station where we were shown round by one of the volunteers, this was very informative actually talking to the people who man the boats to rescue people. With the number of people in the old town, it must be an absolute nightmare for the crew to actually get to the Lifeboat station in the summer months. The new town is South of the river and reminds me very much of any tourist seaside town with all the amusement arcades.
From Whitby we went by coach to Grosmont where we boarded a two car diesel to Pickering on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway. There was a slight disappointment it was not a steam train but the positive point was that you could look ahead right through the drivers cab and get a drivers eye view of the line.
When we reached the end of the line at Pickering our coach with Tony the driver we had had all week was waiting for us to take us back to our hotel for dinner
Thursday 2 June 2022
Today we had to pack our cases as tonight we would be at a different hotel and these were loaded onto the coach, next time we would see them would be in our bedroom. We in turn were heading for Settle railway station to join the Settle to Carlisle line.
To meet us on the station was a volunteer guide from the Friends of Settle & Carlisle who told us a bit about the history of the line, the attempts to close it and the fight to save it. Also why Micky Mouse is in a place of honour high above the ticket hall.
The landscape between Settle and Carlisle is quite dramatic and is the highest point on the English rail system with a long steady climb to the summit, Our S&C
guide joined us on the train for part of the journey to Carlisle with his portable PA system, I don’t know if the other travellers enjoyed his commentary as much as we did.
We had a few hours of free time to spend in Carlisle before our onward rail journey so after eating lunch in the Cathedral we headed to the Tullie House museum followed by a gentle stroll around the Abbey and grounds before returning to the station to catch a train to Hexham. This line is known as The Hadrian’s Wall line but you only catch a mere glimpse of any old workings if you are very lucky.
At Hexham a second coach was waiting to take us up to The White Swan at Alnwick, our second hotel of the holiday and a complete contrast to the first, old and
only three stories high. Our room was on the second floor at the back so very quiet, we were also pleased to see our bags waiting for us.
Please go to Part two to see the rest of our trip by clicking HERE
Below is a map showing our travels, clicking it takes you to Google Maps where it can be seen in more detail.
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