Well it’s been a while since my last 500 Words post so I thought I would kick things off this year with a photo from one of my favourite places from my 2017 travels.

Where: Whitby, England

When: February 2017 (one year ago!!)

Background: On Sunday in mid February 2017 I was driving from Harrogate to my accommodation just out of Scarborough. I had already decided that I wanted to go via Whitby – not sure why but I have a thing for fishing villages/small towns so this was the perfect opportunity to visit one. I rocked up but of course it was mild and sunny.. Well not really ‘of course’ because it was still winter after all. I mean ‘of course’ in the “of course the first mild, sunny Sunday of the year just happened to be the day I was visiting” way.

As a result of the gorgeous weather, every man and his dog and all their mates, had descended on Whitby to enjoy the day and there was NO parking in the centre of town. So I decided to keep driving. I headed up the hill and saw some parking at the Whitby Abbey car park, heaps of people had parked there already so I had planned to park & then head down the steps to Whitby itself but then I saw Whitby Abbey was open.

Whitby Abbey: I hadn’t planned on going to Whitby Abbey because when I was doing my research I had seen that it wouldn’t be open at the time I would be there. As I was walking passed the entrance I decided that I didn’t really want to walk down those steps and then back up again so went to Whitby Abbey for £7.50 instead.

And it was awesome!

During the visit, a couple of actors came out and did a bit of a performance whilst dressed as a monk and maiden from very long ago. They got some of the crowd involved and it was actually really enjoyable and entertaining. {Did you know that we can thank Whitby Abbey for when we celebrate Easter!? No, me neither!} After that, I wandered around the ruins taking loads of photos. Not only are the ruins awesome, but you also get a really amazing view of Whitby below so I am glad that I ended up going to the Abbey instead.

Dracula In The House: Did you know that Bram Stoker actually got inspiration for his book, Dracula whilst visiting Whitby Abbey. I mean, I visited during the day with loads of people around but yeah, I could totally see why it would have inspired him to write about vampires!

One Last Look: So on my last day of having the car I had planned to go to some other ruins further north before dropping the car off in York but at the last-minute I decided to head back to Whitby because I just knew I couldn’t leave without going back there. It was now a couple of days later on the Tuesday so I figured it would be fewer people this time and I was right. I parked up at the local train station and headed off around the city centre for a walk. As I was heading back to the car, I saw this gorgeous red boat and loved the contrast against the houses in the background and the blue sky. You can even see Whitby Abbey up there on the hill!

I had already fallen in love with Whitby on my drive-through but when I went back and wandered around, that was when I knew Whitby was one of my favourite places. I would love to go back and spend a good couple of days in the town & discover even more about it.

Well, I’ve slightly gone over my 500 words on this one – oops 😀

Have you been to Whitby?
If so, did you like it? Would you go back?