After a very posh breakfast of eggs florentine, toast, tea and fruit we piled all our junk into the car and headed off for York and the Air Force museum. The day was beautiful where we were but as we travelled south, fog set in and as the sun is not that warm at this time of the year, it took while for the fog to lift. On our way south, we pulled off the road and visited the Angel of the North. This is a large iron statue with stretched out wings. The statue is 20 metres tall and wingspan of 54 metres. I took a photo with Graeme standing beside it so we could remember the size.
Luckily for Graeme there was not much to see so he fell asleep for an hour or so in the car once we were back out on the road. The car was warm and I was trying to keep awake myself so we called into a McDonalds (they are everywhere) and had a coffee and a walk around which woke me up and was able to continue the trip to the air force museum. They organised a wheelchair for Graeme and we looked through the whole sight. There was a whole building dedicated to the Bomber Command.
I think Graeme enjoyed that the most. There were planes parked outside but the big hanger had a Lancaster bomber. It is absolutely amazing how much stuff Graeme knows about these planes and their stories. While I'm not particularly interested in WW2, I'm actually enjoying the visits to these places. This place was the home of the 77th squadron and in times past was the airfield for their sorties. Now there is only a partial runway with this massive plane sitting at the end.
From the airfield we made our way into the city, found our accommodation and caught the bus into the minster. We sat with the choir and listened to the service (very different from ours) for about an hour. The choir was all male members. Their were boy sopranos, some looked about 8! There was no photography allowed but I did manage to sneak a short audio clip of the singing. Graeme was not so impressed by the whole thing. It did seem very staged to me also but it was a good experience.
There is one thing that we will remember about this trip is the dogs! British people take their dogs with them everywhere. They are very welcome in most hotels and they walk them everywhere. While we were at the hotel in Arrochar, Scotland there was a couple who bought their two dogs. Little terrier types who jumped into the loch every chance they could. They were bought into the hotel wet and smiling... such a difference to Australia!
Ted
2016-03-12
Looks fabulous! That view at breakfast is amazing. I could wake up every day to that!