Fountains Abbey Part Two and Onward

Continuing Day Nine of our travels, after the ruins of the Abbey we kept walking a circular path that would take us back to the main entrance going past the water garden.

We went through this dark tunnel upward to view the octagon tower.

We crossed the lake and continued to St. Mary’s church instead of going on to the deer park.

We were disappointed to see the church would not open until 1pm.

We made it back to the main gate and enjoyed lunch before heading back to York to drop off our car and take a train to Liverpool. At the Enterprise car rental station we had another good experience and we got a special ride back to the railway station. Once at the station we had time before our train would depart so we found a table at a pub at the station and played Phase 10 to pass the time. Soon it was time to head to platform 5 for our 2 hour train ride to Liverpool.

Thankfully our train ride had no delays and no cancellations. We enjoyed meeting a gal, sitting in front of us, who had just gotten back to England from our neck of the woods. We were surprised to hear her talking about being in Bellingham and she was shocked to hear that Laura went to university in Bellingham. We arrived at the Lime Street station in Liverpool with a short walk to our hotel.

We got our luggage into our rooms and then ventured out for a place to enjoy dinner. We headed to the Denbigh Castle and realized right away there was not even an inch of space with the crowd enjoying an Everton game. It was so great to be there on the outside looking in when Everton scored and the whole pub erupted with cheers.

We moved on from The Denbigh and found the Hawksmoor and there was a table in the bar for us even though we did not have reservations.

We placed our orders and it took quite a long long time before any food appeared at our table. They finally came to our table apologetically and told us that my hamburger was dropped on the way to our table and they had to go out and buy some buns because they had run out of buns. LOL!

The food was good and we were okay with the wait. Greg had a vegetable wellington that looked cool and tasted good. Josh called an Uber for us when we finished dinner instead of walking back to the hotel.

This was the end of day nine and time for a good sleep after a very long day of travel and walking. Two more full days of travel before it was time to fly home.

Fountains Abbey ~ Wow!

 

On Saturday September 23rd, day nine of our travels, we had our buffet breakfast at the Knaresborough Inn, checked out and journeyed to nearby Fountains Abbey which is one of The National Trust properties in England at the Studley Royal Park. It was a rainy morning and we were wondering if the clouds would clear for our time at this property. Yes and hallelujah the rain moved on and the skies were glorious for our time at this magnificent property.

 

History of these largest Monastic Ruins in the country can be found here.

We paid our admission fee and walked down the pathway to the ruins. What a treat it was to be here and to see the wonder of it all. This was way up there in the Wow Factor.

Be forewarned that this post has a lot of photos.

The timing for our visit couldn’t have been better. As you can see, we are enjoying the grounds without other people around. A few more people arrived as time went on but we never had to dodge anyone.

I’m sure Laura was saying WOW! here.

 

 

This was a wonderful setting to remember all our Savior completed for us on the cross 2000 years ago.

I’m ending this post here. We walked on to more of the Studley Royal Park grounds and enjoyed some other sights before we walked back to the main entrance and had some lunch at the visitor center restaurant.

If you’ve made it all the way through this post you deserve applause! Thank you for coming along on my travel journal of our time in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Just a few more posts to go.