Although the Lake District is in the county of Cumbria on the West coast, after leaving York we headed North-East to Whitby. The whole day was on back roads with Whitby being a very popular seaside village for tourists. The countryside was amazing and ever changing with the fells (hills) being bare of vegetation. At Whitby we were dropped off at the top of town at an old ruined Abby that inspired Bram Stoker to write Dracula. We walked down to the village and vis...

Leaving Chester behind we headed north east to our next stop of York via the Pennines which is the hill chain running down through the centre of England and known as the backbone of England. This was country of rolling hills, no vegetation, lots and lots of sheep, windswept moors, dry stone walls and of the Brontes. We visited the Bronte Parsonage at Haworth and learnt about the tragic lives of the 3 famous Bronte sisters. A staggering 8 million visitors come eac...

With the sun still shining we drove (or Bob did) to Worcester where we toured the cathedral. While this was 'another Cathedral', it again underlined the central role of the church throughout the centuries in the lives of the English people. Still very much an active church, we were hosted by a delightful volunteer guide Andrew who was at least 80 years of age but who was very entertaining and knowledgeable. The cathedral is lovely and boasts the tomb of King John...

Starting our Back Roads tour from near our London hotel, we made our way on a 16 seater 'boutique' bus towards the Cotswolds leaving London and the dreary weather behind. There were only 9 passengers plus the tour guide Bob, so we had plenty of room and there was a nice mix of people from the US, Canada, NZ and us. First stop was Oxford where we visited the university and in particular Christ Church College where parts of Harry Potter were filmed. Still cool here...

London - 4 days here until 22 May and we have a list of everything we want to visit. A couple of quick observations: - 7.5million people is a lot! (some say at least a million more) - every second vehicle on the roads seems to be a London cab - there are soooo many smokers - there is an incredible diversity of languages spoken in London, many more than we expected, it seems at times more often than English. And lots and lots of French. Or maybe it's just that we ...