On the Road Again

It has begun again, we're off traveling again, much to our delight.

We definitely enjoyed out time in Warwick and will miss everyone there but we are very excited to be free again to go where we want when we want.

The trip began yesterday morning, after saying goodbye to the Warwick Arms Hotel we set off in our new car to Leeds. This took somewhat longer that expected (should be a 2.5 hr drive, took us about 5 and a bit hrs!!) due in part to some really crap navigating on my (gem's) part, a sort of planned detour and a lot of confusing road signs in Leeds!!!!

The first detour was because the motorway was suggesting the there were going to be delays, so being at that stage confident in my map and navigation skills we decided to risk heading a different way off the trusty M1 and off towards Derby. Having missed the first signposted turn we decided to follow signs to a Caulke Abbey a National Trust property which we thought would just be some wee ruins that we could pop into then carry on. Turned out to be a massive stately home that is in the process of being restored with massive grounds. We went in quickly and had a tour around the conservation works which was really interesting, we could have stayed all day but since we were already well behind time we had to carry on.



There was a bit more getting lost (our map is very large scale, must get a better one) before we got to Leeds then a whole lot more getting lost in Leeds (very confusing town and the AA directions i had were hopeless!!) before we finally made it to Pam and Andrews place.

Since we're on holiday now there is no stopping us so we all went out to the theatre last night. We saw a play called Bedroom Farce which was very funny. I felt very grown up to be going to a proper play!!


Today's adventure was York!!

It definitely feels like we're back in tourist mode as once again we were climbing things. We climbed up 275 steps to the top of York Minster, the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe.



There is so much to do there so we just took in some of the best. York Minster was amazing, I wasn't really expecting it to be so tall, its massive and when you go in, it feels like the roof is miles away. So beautiful inside with loads of carving and amazing stained glass windows. One thing that struck me was some modern sculptures of figures holding semaphore letters which spelled out "Christ is here".



York is a pretty historical town, there is a Viking exhibition Jorvik which was very interesting and also the Barley Hall which is a reconstructed Medieval Alderman's House and has all the inside bits that you can touch and play with which was cool!!

We walked around a wee bit of the city walls and looked at the ruins of St Mary's Abbey and the Holy Trinity Church. So much to see it was great, and lots of tea in quaint tea shops and several fudge shops too. I liked York!!!