Over the short time I have been on this earth (all 42 of them!), I’ve been to many places across England, as you’d expect. Some cities I’ve spent a few days in, others have been day trips, and some places closer to home in the North-East (being a northern lad from Grimsby/Hull), I have visited many times. So, this blog entry is going to be a bit random, with the various places from our beautiful country.
Random visit to this ancient monument whilst visit my uncle who lived not too far. I would say this is possibly (outside of London anyway) one of the countries biggest landmarks. I was just as curious to visit here as I was the leaning tower of Pisa in Italy. Its up there, right?! You don’t get to go close to it, tourists kinds walk in a circle around it from a distance. It was packed with tourists, but luckily because the monument is so big and you see it from a distance, you can barley see the masses of people in my pictures!
Spurn point is right on my doorstep, roughly hours drive from Hull, and from where I live (right on the river front) you can actually see Spurn Point in the very far distance, across the river. You could easily spend the best part of a day here. Nothing much to do other than walk the beaches and the long path of the lighthouse, but the perfect place to clear your head, get some fresh sea air.
Lovely little seaside town about an hour north of Hull by train, it’s got a lovely beach area, sea front and a castle. There was even a little funicular ride!
I think Whitby is probably my favourite seaside town in our country. It doesn’t have the same level of tourism as Blackpool and therefore avoids the typical tourist attractions like the endless arcades and theme parks (none of which I’m a big fan of). Lovely beach and seaside area, the perfect place for some fish and chips!
I visited Whitby Abbey on a weekend trip with my partner, it was early September with very autumnal weather. The pictures I managed to take (as you can see) are amazing, the weather (whilst not raining) look very moody with the dark clouds and added to the atmosphere. Surprisingly, no part of these ruins are cordoned off or off bounds, so you can fully explore the old ruins.
Runswick Bay is a small seaside town not far from Whitby, and was my first (and possibly only ever) experience of camping!
If you drive from the south towards Newcastle (and even on the Train, I think!) you’ll go past this huge statue on the roadside, The Angel of the North. Apparently, it was built to signify the change between the industrial, to the information age. You can’t go inside or up it, or anything like that. But it is a good place to stop off before you enter to city and get a good snap for the gram! It’s 20 meters high, I just had to google that, but to be honest I thought it was much taller.
So the main sight to see here is the Tyne Bridge, beyond that I didn’t particularly think there was much else to see. However, at the time of my visit there was an elephant trail (and you’ll know from my other blogs on here how much I like a good trail, the Bears of Berlin, the Or We Woollies of Edinburgh. I probably got to see more of the city looking for these than I would have otherwise. Newcastle reminded me a lot of Hull, a city that has had a lot of negative press, that’s actually over recent years, been cleaned up, modernised and had investment.
Manchester, England’s second largest city after London, and with the amount of attractions here you can easily tell! The city has a great nightlife, but my favourite area in Salford Media City.
Liverpool, like Hull, has seen a lot of investment in the area in recent years, and it shows. The day I spent here and walked around this city, it was hard to understand where all the bad press came from, as I could only see the restorations or areas and buildings and the shiny new parts. Loved the Albert Dock area and loved the London eye style big wheel (which I think is a permanent attraction).
York, a lovely medieval city surrounded by walls, not far from Hull. We often see it as the perfect day trip to go drinking or even better for the Christmas markets.
So this really does feel strange, as Cleethorpes is the town next to Grimsby where I grew up. I’m not going to say anything, other than you can get some of the best fish and chips in the world (which is a pretty bold statement) right here… Pappas!
Bourton-on-the-Water has one of the best model villages I have ever seen (which isn’t many by the way), but I visited here with my partner and we had the best day taking random photos with the model village buildings.
Bath is a lovely little city in the south of England, best known for its Roman Baths, which was the main reason for my visit. Well worth the drive.
