On the move in England

First, a little note in Real Time because I am so far behind on the blog (!!). Turns out that when we plan a busy summer, there is precious little time to write new posts. But now we have the time and (SPOILER ALERT!) we had a great summer of travel in England, Ireland and Scotland. We are looking forward to sharing our stories and photos with you, so stay tuned for those posts!

When last we left you we had just spent our first overnight in England at a pub called The Bricklayers Arms that was closed for our entire stay. As a result, we were the only ones there. It was very quiet and we slept well.

We left at a reasonable time the following morning, not really knowing what the traffic situation would be like on the roads. We had decided to head to Cambridge, because what’s not to love about a beautiful university town? As it turns out, our planned stay of five days turned into two weeks, we loved it that much!

On our way we had picked out a grocery store we thought we could drive to without much trouble with skinny roads. It was a good plan until we got a couple of blocks away and discovered there was a sinkhole in the street we needed to turn on and a sign that said the Tesco grocery store was no longer accessible from this road. Great. We just kept driving, albeit in the wrong direction. I finally just turned into what looked like a little shopping center and there we found a new Aldi store as well as a Costa coffee shop. We needed a break, so off we went for a coffee and a scone. I am obsessed with scones and the clotted cream that usually comes with them.

I say “usually”, because clotted cream is mostly available, but not always. This was one of those “not always” times and we got whipped cream instead. It was amazingly delicious, because two things that England excels at is dairy and beef, in my opinion. In reality, scones are just a vehicle to get cream into my mouth.

We got our groceries and continued the drive, which totaled under an hour and a half. In no time, we were parked up in our spot at the Highfield Farm Touring Park in Comberton, about six miles from Cambridge. We hadn’t really planned anything specific to do or see other than just visit the main attractions, but as we were checking in, the lady started telling Steven about a little town not far from where we were parked called Grantchester. “Are you familiar with the TV show?” she asked. We weren’t, but it turned out that we would become familiar with it and it would change the entire nature of our visit to Cambridge.

I love this photo so much because it really does convey the absolute privacy we had at the campground. And the open skies were just amazing every single day. It was here we learned the call of the Wood Pigeon, because they were numerous and loud! They say, “My toes hurt, Betty! My toes hurt, Betty!” Seriously, Google it.

The show is set in the 1950s with the main characters being a vicar from the Anglican Church of St. Andrew and St. Mary, in Grantchester, and a detective from the Cambridge police force. The two join together to solve the absurdly high number of murders that happen in the Cambridge area. It reminded me somewhat of Angela Lansbury’s “Murder She Wrote”, where the writer lived in a small town that seemed to have an extraordinary number of murders that required her sleuthing assistance in order to find the perpetrator. Same kind of thing with “Grantchester”, only with a British accent and a lot more personal angst from the characters.

The vicar and the detective in “Grantchester”. Many scenes were filmed in the actual town as well as in Cambridge, that’s part of what made it fun for us to watch. Inside the church there were big cardboard cutouts of these two characters. The church, and the town, are quite proud of their notoriety.
Seen in Grantchester. Not very murdery in real life 🙂

As we watched the show each night, we would learn more about the area and then go visit the places highlighted in the episode. Sydney Chambers, the vicar, was forever zipping back and forth on his bicycle into Cambridge from the church in Grantchester. We would visit the town and then walk the same route into Cambridge. It was a lovely walk.

The vicarage beside the church. Both feature frequently in the show.
Many a sermon was given from this vantage point in the TV show.
Beautiful stained glass windows in the little church.
Lots of scenes were filmed in the church yard, which is actually an old cemetery.
On our walk from Grantchester into Cambridge.
Wildlife along our walk into Cambridge.
Mute swans on the River Cam.

We took a walking tour of Cambridge and learned a few interesting facts about the university, one of which was about the secret society called the Cambridge Night Climbers. Legend has it that these students climb the spire of King’s College Chapel and document their daredevil feat by leaving an item behind, like a traffic cone. You know, dumb student stuff. A couple of days after the tour, an episode of Grantchester focused on this very group, wrapped up in a murder, of course. We found it to be very interesting that they based the show on actual happenings at the colleges.

There are a ton of spikey things in Cambridge, but I believe this is King’s College.
Cambridge University is actually made up of 31 colleges and while we were there several of them were holding their graduation ceremonies. These two gals were running late, literally! The streets were packed with proud parents and families taking photos of their graduates, who were all decked out in black graduation robes.
The white tent on the right was erected for graduation, but there was still a lot of other activities going on in town. The market and street food vendors were in full swing! It was a fabulous place to mill around and enjoy an afternoon in town!
Those boats, called punts, are moved along the river by pushing with those long poles. Punting on the River Cam is a popular pastime in Cambridge. This area is Queen’s College.

Anyway, the show is nothing earth-shattering, but we enjoyed it along with being able to experience many of the places highlighted. We saw a lot of places I’m not sure we would have seen otherwise. We thoroughly enjoyed our two-week stay near Cambridge.

When we crossed from the Netherlands to England, we had seen a program on the television in our cabin that featured Whitby, a seaside town in Yorkshire, northern England, split by the River Esk and the ruined Gothic Whitby Abbey which is said to be Bram Stoker’s inspiration for “Dracula”. It looked interesting, so we decided we would go visit. On the way, we stopped off in York for a couple of days before making our way to Whitby across the Yorkshire highlands, which were absolutely stunning.

York is a lovely city and on this day, not too crowded.
Market day in York.
You can park your broom outside The Shop That Must Not Be Named, the original wizarding emporium from Harry Potter. We would have liked to visited inside, but it was packed.
We also visited the Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience while we were in York. Multiple projectors lit up the walls of an old church and made Van Gogh’s paintings appear to come alive.
My favorite shop in all the lands, a scone store. Seriously. I got two fruited scones and two blueberry ones to go. And yes, I picked up some clotted cream at the grocery store. They all have it, which makes me so happy!
Snack time! And here’s a funny thing. I have never been a tea drinker, ever. But when we were walking the VF I would be so cold after a long day of walking that Steven would make a cup of tea to warm me up. I am now addicted to tea. How perfect is that? Cream tea, anyone?
How cute is this little ice cream truck? It drove right into our campground in York and just sat there in front of Bijou with ice cream truck music blaring from its speakers. After having my delicious scone, I resisted the ice cream.
Our first close glimpse of the Abbey ruins in Whitby.
Whitby is famous for its fish and chips and we didn’t have any. I don’t know why, they were on every street corner. I regret it. 🙂
Whitby is split in half by the River Esk where it spills into the North Sea. There are beaches on one side and the Abbey ruins on the other.
Nobody pays any attention to these signs. If you have food in your hands, the gulls will dive bomb you. One of the reasons we didn’t eat food while we were there.
A tourist ship in the river below the ruins.
To get from the town to the St. Mary’s church and the Abbey ruins, we had to walk up 199 stairs. 199 was thought to be the perfect number to prove your devotion, should you want to attend a sermon at St. Mary’s.
The view from the steps is beautiful. This is where the river mets the sea.
The view of Whitby from the steps.
The cemetery at St. Mary’s church near the abbey ruins.
We started off with cloudy skies when we reached the Abbey ruins, but the sun soon found its way out to make it a glorious day!
We had a wonderful two-day visit in Whitby. Next time, I’m going to have some fish and chips!

From Whitby we made our way into Scotland which, since our arrival in Europe in February 2019, was country number 31 that we have visited. Hard to believe we have been to that many places, but we have been in Europe almost as long as we traveled in Scoopy when we visited 49 states. (Sorry, Hawaii.)

We just spent a couple of nights in Scotland on our way to catch the ferry to Belfast, Northern Ireland from Cairnryan. We had scheduled ourselves on the first ferry of the day which departed at 7:30 a.m. Unbeknownst to us, we were on a crowded booze cruise. It was a loud, ruckus crowd that wasted no time ordering multiple pints for the two hour journey. There must have been some kind of sporting event happening that we didn’t know about. We still haven’t figured out why it was such a popular time to cross.

Our spot at our campground in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. It was a fabulous site that overlooked the whole town.

Once we arrived in Belfast we just made a beeline south to our favorite place, Moneylands Farm in Arklow, about an hour south of Dublin. We love staying at the place because they treat us like family. We know the town and have a daily walking routine that we enjoy, and we had planned to stay there a few weeks before moving closer to Dublin to visit with family. More on that, next time.

Our favorite spot at Moneyland Farms in Arklow.
Here’s a fun little video showing our trip from Cambridge, England to Arklow in Ireland. Turn up your volume!

And, as always, here is one of Steven’s latest artworks. While in Cambridge, he went to see an exhibit of one of his favorite artists, David Hockney. This visit had a big impact on his work and he began a series of paintings of Yorkshire in England. You can read about that journey here. This is one from the series and is painted from a scene out Bijou’s front window driving through the Yorkshire countryside. If you would like to see more, you can keep up with what he’s doing by following his Visual Art page here.


Next Up: Family time in Dublin


…

Previous Post
Next Post

26 Comments

  1. Betsy+Shequine

    Thanks for this chapter of your story – in Cambridge , then onto Scotland, NOrthern Ireland, and now the /Republic, coming up. t’s all fun to read, and thanks for so many photos.
    It is difficult to keep up with blogging when you are enjoying every day so much. I remember writing a travel diary every day, on trips to Europe, and usually falling asleep as I was writing it, in bed, after a long day, and falling asleep as I wrote!! I can picture you doing the same.
    Enjoy Ireland, and I’ll be so glad to hear about it.

    2. 2chouters

      Oh, we try so hard to stay current in our travels, but sometimes we just need to stop and take a break from blogging and everything else. But now we are back to our slow ways, so we’ll get caught up!

    1. 2chouters

      I know, I fell so far behind! I didn’t mean to take such a long break, but time flies between blog posts, much faster than say, being on a diet. 🙂

  6. Laurie

    Odel and I have watched all the seasons of Grantchester. We were so glad when Sidney left, I think it was after the second season. But he was replaced by Will, who we didn’t like any better. It is the more peripheral characters that I like about that show. I’ll bet it was fun to watch it while you were right there and I can’t imagine that you saw things you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. Beautiful area!

    1. 2chouters

      Oh, fun! You are the only folks we know who have seen the show. We weren’t even sure it was shown in the US. Agree with you about both vicars, Sidney’s angst was just too much and when he left so suddenly (I totally didn’t buy that departure…) I was kind of glad, too. How many more scenes of him knocking back the whiskey could we endure?? I loved Leonard and Mrs. B (is that right??) they were interesting, and tragic, due to the times, both in their own way. Now you and Odel should plan a trip to Cambridge! 🙂

    1. 2chouters

      Ireland is stunning, isn’t it? Steven says he has seen more of his home country in our travels than he ever did when he lived there until young adulthood! It has been really fun to travel with him there!

  11. Laurel

    I completely understand the difficulty of keeping up with blog posts when you’re immersed in traveling. Being present in the moment is the most important thing! It’s always fun to catch up with you when you do have time to post.

    What a cool venue to see the Van Gogh Immersive Experience! We just saw the Monet Immersive Exhibit at the Museum of Art in Indianapolis and it was fabulous, too. I’ll be writing about it sometime in December, LOL LOL.

    You find the most gorgeous campsites, and it always looks as though you are alone. Where is everyone??

    1. 2chouters

      We were literally alone in that section of the campsite, but there were a few others around the corner. We were so far out in the boonies I got my 10k steps just doing two loads of laundry!

  12. Jodee Gravel

    I’m a big Grantchester fan and love that you got to immerse yourselves in that world for a bit! Although Sidney has moved on, I’m still enjoying the new vicar and all the many, many mysteries that occur in their small village :-)) It’s interesting to see more and more people in your photos compared with the last couple years. Glad you were able to feed your scone and cream addiction, and hope you get back for the fish and chips! The abbey ruins are just incredible. As always the photos are all beautiful and make me feel like I’m right there with you. I especially love the ones along the waterfront of Whitby.

Comments are closed.