Dracula's Favourite Place (Whitby in general)

Member Name: Hunting_Bears

Product:	Whitby in general
Date:	18/02/04 (209 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: nice and gloomy

Disadvantages: none really

This weekend past I travelled to Stockton-on –tees to see a friend and a group of us students travelled to Whitby on the 13:20 bus from Middlesbrough bus station to Scarborough that stops at Whitby. The cost was an agreeable £4.50 return and it takes around 45 mins from Middlesbrough. The journey took us through the stunning North Yorkshire moors and I might add that the day was gloomy and raining rather heavily. The atmosphere was wonderfully gothic and I felt like I was in some kind of horror film or a 1930s middle class mystery novel.

On arriving at Whitby my first impression was actually the stench of sea air and fish. The harbour lined with small fishing boats bobbing around in the water is a lovely sight. Along with the gigantic gulls swooping and gliding with abandon. The place with its Victorian architecture and gloomy air was fantastic. If you head toward the sea there are a lot of awful tacky shops and disgusting fish and chips shops. I came to Whitby first and foremost because it is where parts of Bram Stoker's Dracula is set. I could see why Stoker found the place so striking. If I went to Whitby in the summer I would not be impressed, this place actually is a better place when it's raining, windswept and looking moody and dangerous. The locals are surprisingly friendly, the landlord of The Ship (by the harbour) was a lovely fellow who laughed and joked with us, being clever arsed students we chuckled into our pints as the locals constantly talked by fish, one woman proclaimed “I once had a salmon steak that was thiiisss big“. She held out her hands about four feet apart.

After a stroll on the beach and onto the pier we travelled to the harbour for a spot of crab lining which my friends told me was a worthwhile and exciting way to pass the time. It is not. I was incredibly glad when my friend from the Boro, Phil threw the entire line, wired with fish guts into the harbour in a fit of pique.


The best part of Whitby of course is the Abbey and the hundred plus steps. There is a name for the steps but all six of us counted and came up with a different number. I stopped counting when I all most had a massive coronary whilst storming up the old Victorian steps that wind up to the graveyard and Abbey. The graveyard is wonderfully grim, sandstone, weatherworn and chilling. I could well imagine Dracula being at home there. We walked up to the Abbey and found that it was closed, so we climbed over the wall and mooched about in beautiful ruins of the Abbey that must have been here for over a thousand years.

It was pitch black and we all felt like we were starring in a bizarre horror film and that somebody was about to pop out and murder us. We had a dance on some graves for a laugh and because my friend Henry who is a theology student told me centuries ago graveyards were a place of celebration. We all then looked out to the sea that was thrashing wildly and we all decided that Whitby was a cool place. I want to retire here when I am old and grey.

After we went to graveyard we travelled through the narrow cobbled streets with the three storey Victorian homes and old arts and crafts shops and went to the bus shelter and left back to the grim industrious Middlesbrough, which I detest by the way.

Whitby is best viewed in winter, especially when it is raining and dank. Trust me it is a wonderful place and I am reading Dracula at the moment in a vain attempt to relive my experience of Whitby. There were a lot of silly Goths hanging around with their PVC coats and heavy depressing make up, I enjoyed the sight of this because it adds to the Victorian gothica. There is a big festival of Dracula in the summer and the town is beset upon by Goths reading Dracula and such. Rather silly in my view but I think it is just good fun. I love Yorkshire in general and Whitby is officially my favourite place in England.
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