Fountains Abbey

Day 2 of our adventure brought us to Fountains Abbey which is Britian's largest monastic ruin. It's 800 acres with over 800 years of history. The abbey was founded by 13 monks who wanted to get back to the simpler ways of life.

They hiked back into the woods and decided that this place was perfect for starting a new life.

In the mill house there was a exhibition about how the monks used to live. They would get about 2 pints of beer and one meal of a vegetable stew. They wouldn't eat any meat that came from animals that walk on four legs so fish and chicken is about all they got.

Me and Addison standing on standing on the bridge just out side of the mill looking back at the abbey.

This was an amazing place and Addison just had so much fun climbing all over the ruins and checking out all there was to see.

The cellarium roof was very well in tact. This is where the brothers of the monastary ate, slept and socialized. It's amazing how it survived the dissolution of monastaries in 1539.

After exploring the abbey, headed back up the steep hill for lunch at the cafe but back down again to walk around to the water gardens. The symmetrical design is French and they are pretty impressive. One thing we noticed though was that there seemed to be a lack of aeration in the water and lots of algae growing. Well Kevin thought it was pretty poor management of the grounds keeper but I tried explaining that these gardens were designed back in the 1700's and I was sure they wanted to keep them the same as they were back then. Then we discussed how they must use a big algae eating machine a couple times a year to get it all out....It's amazing what kind of conversations you end up having while your children are asleep in their stroller.

We tried capturing the famous pictures shown on all the brochures of the abbey with it's reflection in the water and with the waterfall. Kevin was trying to hold out when you wouldn't have any people in the picture but I told him to just give up and snap the picture because there were people everywhere. It was beautiful though and we had a great long day at the abbey. Kevin says this is the coolest place he's seen in England so far and I would have to agree that it is in my top sites.

I wanted to show a picture of what I ate for lunch that day. I swear I've never been to any attraction or site in the US that can serve a meal like they can at some of the cafes here in the UK. A full Sunday roast of chicken, roast potatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, Yorkshire pudding and gravy all over and it all tasted like it was home made. It was sooooooo good!!!!

On our way back to our B&B we stopped in Ilkly, a very nice down in the foothills of the Yorkshire Dales. Danny and Min had just been to the Cow and Calf Inn up in the hills of the town just the prior week with friends they met on their cruise. We thought since we were in the vicinity that we would check it out for ourselves. On the way we stopped to watch some horse trials because Addie loves the horses and we also saw this public footpath that went over the river. The pub we ate at ended up being part of the same chain as The Cuckoo (a fav place of mine to eat in Peterborough) so we got to enjoy some good familiar eats. The view from the place would have been beautiful but it started to rain and we were stuck in a cloud. Tragedy struck once we were ready to leave. Our SatNav blew up again...what crazy luck!!! Needless to say I actually had maps this time and Kevin remembered how to get to our B&B once we got to Harrogate, but it took us 2x as long to get back because we made a few wrong turns.

Today was actually Harrison's 1st birthday!!! Poor guy didn't get much pomp and circumstance, but we did sing to him right away in the morning and he got to play with his balloon from Pizza Express the night before. He and Addison had so much fun chasing each other around in the room.

After a long two days we were pretty tired and our shoes seemed to paint the picture of how we all felt...pretty darn tired, but still having fun hanging out together. Lots of miles we've put on and one more day to go...York or bust tomorrow.