Fountains & Fuzzy Bees – Ripon

12th June 2006

After Whitby we moved on to Ripon and we were head for another Abbey, Fountains Abbey to be specific. Now I’m a person of historical background and at this point I didn’t really want to visit another Abbey, I wanted to visit castles, places where great men had fought and died. When we got there it was almost closing time and we only just got in. The grounds were deserted, as we walked down towards the Abbey I noticed a large impressive tower standing out from the greenery and wondered what it could be. We moved closer going along a winding path and finally came to the tower, which actually turned out to be part of the Abbey. This Abbey was epic, it really was like a medieval castle and dwarfed Whitby Abbey in comparison. It was amazing and virtually intact. Although I again walked around on my own and even though the place was deserted, I didn’t get the same eerie feeling I had gotten at Whitby. We only had a short time to explore Fountains Abbey, but I don’t think we would have seen everything the place had to offer, even if we had gotten there at 9am.There was a whole complex of buildings, including a few which surprisingly were still in use. There was a great hall, a ground keepers house, which had the most beautiful gardens I had ever seen, complete with fuzzy English bumble bees, which amuse me no end and there was also a wood mill, something I had not expected to find within the grounds of an Abbey.

Ripon Abbey

We decided to head back to the car and head for home, well Huntingdon anyway. We soon discovered that we did not know the way back. I’m going off the Greece in a few days I wonder if I can navigate the way back. I made my parents trust me and we walked out of the west gate and up a road with high stinging nettles either side of it, the walk took about half an hour, but it got us back to the car in one piece and left me with the feeling that my sense of direction had improved a bit. We got in the car and drove to a nearby pub, which was more like an expensive restaurant, and I again had steak and ale pie which was ok but not really worth the price we paid for the meal. I again fell asleep on the way back to Huntingdon, but not all the way back. I managed to stay awake for part of the trip and listened to my Mp3 player. We went through a few different places including the town of Rugby where Rugby League originated. We got back to Uncle Paul’s at about 10pm and went straight to bed.

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