Easter Monday Trip To York

Weather a little dodgy today, so we drove to York. First stop, the world's largest railway museum, the National Railway Museum. All boys got very excited. It is a fantastic place. Best exhibits were a Japanese bullet train:

Officially world's fastest steam locomotive, 'Mallard' (there is some dispute over the real record holder):

The beautiful Duchess of Hamilton:

And a mad, but great looking ad, proclaiming that Skegness was bracing (in which case why on earth would I want to go there):

After the National Railway Museum we went into town. York is one of those fantastically historical towns, which has layers of history each built on top of the last. Founded by the Romans, then added to by Anglo-Saxons, Vikings, Normans and medieval Britain, it has historically been one of the most important English towns. It has considerable stretches of city wall and everything is a very walkable, because when it was built there were no cars. We had a look at the Minster:

The tiny Medieval streets, the thinnest being 'The Shambles':

And circled the very photogenic Clifford's Tower:

Before settling upon spending some more time with railways, this time a model railway exhibition near the real York station, before setting off back to Addingham with the feeling that one day is not enough. York really needs a long weekend, or two.

Easter Sunday Dales Walk

Up in the Yorkshire Dales for a week; staying in Addingham. Today we went for a walk around Grassington to get ourselves acclimatised to some walking. Here are a few pics:

It was one of those days when it was bright skies one minute and rain the next. The photo, above, illustrates this rather well.