19, 20, 21 & 22 August 2012

North East England

Over the last 4 days we have travelled up through Hull, York, Scarborough, Whitby, Boldon (near Sunderland) and we are now in Otterburn in Northumberland.  On Friday we head up to Edinburgh for the Tattoo Yah!

A nice place to stop and have a cup of tea & scone.

Another stop this time for a long lunch of traditional Sunday roast.

 The walled city of York.

A nice place for yet another break.  

This time was coffee & tea cake at the cafe next door to the Red Lion.

It was then back to the coast and to the North Bay of Scarborough. It is school holidays in the UK so everyone has headed for the beach.

The old & the new.

South bay of Scarborough.

Maurice remembers Whitby being a quiet seaside town where James Cook trained as an apprentice.  Endeavour was a Whitby built ship.

This time it wasn't exactly quiet.  I think everyone who wasn't in Scarborough for their holiday must have been in Whitby.

James Cooks lodgings when
he was an apprentice.
Now the museum.

 We made our way to Boldon yesterday as the bike was booked in for it's 2nd service of the trip this morning.

We have done about 16,000 Kms.

The plan was to have a good look around the area on our way up to Edinburgh but unfortunately about an hour or so after leaving the service centre it started to rain heavily so we stopped at Otterburn.

The Butterchurn is our home for the next 2 nights.

 A very short walk to the Percy Arms.

 Just the place for a coffee & a port.

This next picture is on the wall across from the BB and reminded us of an incident in Pamplona, I'm sure Kev will remember it!

17 & 18 August 2012

Paris ooh lala!

and on the train to London.

We have been to Paris before but we thought we would just spend the night.

We strolled along the Champs Elysees and had a drink and some 

Escargot! Well we were in Paris.

These guys from Brazil were at the same restaurant having a really good time.

You can't go to Paris with out going to see the tower and we looked at it from a lot of different angles.

We laid around looking up at it.  We looked at it from our hotel.  I haven't got a picture but we did see it from where we had dinner as well. 

Your not suppose to park there Maurice!!

One of the main reasons Maurice wanted to go Paris was so he could ride around and around and around  the Arc de Triomphe.

The strange side ways
look is because there
was 3 guys in uniform
carrying rather large
rifles behind Maruice.

Zumo screen at the Arc.

From the bike on the way out.


Wonder if that's what power's his
air horns?

We headed to Calais and caught the train under the channel and rode through London, past the Olympic venues.  Thankfully everyone had already gone home. 

Waiting to get on the train was a bit warm but really easy and much quicker and cheaper than the Ferry.

You have to stand up for the trip but it only takes 35 minutes.

16  August 2012

Bad Ragaz & Bern Switzerland to Vesoul France.

Well we had a great time in Bad Ragaz but it was time to move on.  I wanted to go to see the Bears in Bern.  The poor things use to be stuck in just a pit at the end of the street but now they have a great new large enclosure.
We then moved on across the border to a small French town, Vesoul.

This is what they use to live in and while they can still get into this area it leads out into their new riverside area.

They have heaps of room to roam around or
just lazy around.

A couple of photo's of Bern itself, which is a pretty town.

We crossed the border into France and found Vesoul a great little place that I could have quite easily have stayed in for a few days.

Cute little streets,

and great statues.

Maurice was taken by this door hnadle.