The Great British Summer had dished up a load of wet days but even so, we had planned to go for a day trip down to North Yorkshire to check out Castle Howard and Rievaulx Abbey.
As it turned out, the weather was pretty darn nice, with a sunny day and not too cold, not too warm, just right!
Who said Britain's Summer was rubbish?
Not me!
Castle Howard is a brilliant historic house that has remained in the Howard family for hundreds of years. It is famous for the 1980's television production of Brideshead Revisited, which incidentally has recemtly been remade as a feature length film.
Not only does Castle Howard feature magnificent rooms, hallways, massive entry foyers with a domed and frescoed ceiling but the gardens are absolutely superb also.
Possibly this is not for everyone, but seeing many historic homes and castles throughout our travels in Europe and Britain, eg Versailles and various chateaux, as well as the highly interesting Werribee Mansion in Australia, this castle is certainly right up there with the best.
Rievaulx Abbey (pronounced Ree-voh) is a ruined abbey near a small town called Helmsley in North Yorkshire.
We have English Heritage passes and as this abbey is run by English Heritage, we took advantage of being in the area and the fact that the photos of this abbey look fantastic.
The Abbey is actually pretty cool and quite big.
Of course, it's ruins now, since King Henry VIII decided to dissolve the abbey and gave it to his friends, but it's pretty amazing that so much still stands as this was in 1538 or thereabouts.
At any rate, we had a good day in the British Summer!
