We rented a car at St Pancras Station, London and headed on our road trip. First stop was the coastal town of Whitby. This is a seaside port town in Northern Yorkshire, known for being the town where Captain James Cook apprenticed to learn seamanship skills.  We had rented a bed and breakfast across the street from the ocean. It was a four story house and our room was on the top floor so wrestling the bags up all of the flights of stairs (no elevatorJ was an experience but once there, very comfortable. Just about everything had closed down for the night by the time we got there but we were lucky to find a take out place that was still serving.

The next morning, after a full English breakfast we walked along the shoreline then drove around the perimeter of the town. As we drove we could see below where the little inlets with all of the local fishermen’s boats anchored, a really sweet little place. We stopped and walked around the ruins of Whitby Abby, which was destroyed by Vikings around the year 870! Part of Bram Stokers novel, Dracula, was set in Whitby and it is said he used the idea of the Abby ruins to inspire Dracula’s castle and discovered the name Dracula at the library in town.

We then got on the road again, heading for Scotland.