OFF TO RIPON

Poor JoAnne was under the weather so Ginger,Sharon and I took the number 36 bus to Ripon to see the Cathedral there and the Workhouse Museum.

Our first stop was to find a place for lunch.  Not easy on a Monday we discovered.  Never fear however we managed to find a cute little restaurant and enjoyed a very nice quiche and salad for lunch.  One of the interesting things we've learned about the restaurants in Great Britain is that along with a green salad which generally comes with your meal there is also coleslaw and sometimes either a little pasta salad or potatoe salad. Nice!

We walked to the cathedral down a picturesque little street.

This is an interior shot of The Catholic Church of St Peter and St. Wilfred.

One interesting piece of history concerned the end seat on the north side of the Quire. On the seat is carved a Griffin chasing a rabbit while another rabbit escapes down it's hole.  This is believed to have inspired Lewis Carroll in his writing of Alice in Wonderland. His father was a Canon at the church from 1852-1868.

In 672 St Wilfred built a crypt as a place of prayer and devotion.   He believed it to be a copy of the tomb in which the body of Jesus was laid and from which he rose on the first Easter Day. 

After visiting the cathedral we went to the Workhouse Museum. Very interesting and extremely well done but not an uplifting experience.  It depicted life as it was.  When asked if we'd like to spend the night we didn't hesitate one minute to answer in unison"No thank you!!!!!"  Just not our kind of B&B.  

I mean we have slept in Castles. After a few more weeks on the road however we might give a very different answer.  Paupers might be an appropo  discription and we might very well welcome a free bath, free bed and  and a free meal! -)!

We returned to Harrogate and this photo is probably worth a thousand words.  So consider this a very long blog.  Be sure to note Ginger's shoes.  

As I'm sure you know (people who read my blog are people in the know) the Tour de France is going to be in the area we are currently visiting in July.  We have seen bicycles all over the area decorated,and displayed on top of buildings, store front windows on sidewalks,etc. Additiionally, all around the various villages  etc. are these cute little bicycle jersey's that are waving in the wind.  I regret not thinking of taking more photographs of them.  We just kept seeing them and they became part of the scenery.  To give you an idea I do have two pictures.

The bike on the information center in Harrogate.

Note the bikes and the little spots of color on the fence are the small little bicycle jersey's. They were much like the sheep- all over the countryside!

Now if I can get this published I can tell you all about our day in York.