Abbey ruins

Instead of my normal route home via the West Coast route after seeing my parents I travelled to York where I chose to have a couple of hours in between trains.  There were dozens of foreign students around in the museum gardens and I was pleased to help a couple of them identify flowers that they had to do for a quiz.  These are the remains of the ruined Benedictine abbey of St Mary’s which lay just outside York’s city walls and was once the richest abbey in the north of England but was dissolved in Henry VIII’s time, having been founded in 1088. It once rivalled the nearby York Minster in size.
The journey back along the picturesque Northumbrian and Berwickshire coasts was absolutely stunning with the clear sky and evening shadows but unfortunately I was on the wrong side of the train to take photos.  The train journey was worth it for the views alone especially as the tide was high and places like Lindisfarne Island and Alnmouth looked spectacular.