Slow Travellers - Hull to Edinburgh

Our ferry was due to arrive in Hull at 7.30am local time so I had set our alarm for about 6.30am to give us time to quicky wash and pack - however I need not have bothered as we were awoken by a ship wide announcement at 6am that the breakfast buffet was now open. Looking out of the window we were surprised to see we were making our way along the Humber estuary, so we quickly got dressed and went to deck to watch the ship arriving. Disembarking too a lot longer than planned due to passport control mainly, but we were greeted by my Uncle who lives in nearby Beverley. Marla had excitedly spotted him arriving at the port car part from the deck. We would stay with him for a night before travelling onwards to Edinburgh.

After some breakfast we spent the morning recovering from the days travel before heading to the beach at Hornsea and a gentle wander through the town of Beverley for an evening meal.

The next day we drove to York - we had initially planned this trip with train with a stopover in York, but my uncle decided to join us and offered to drive us there which made life a bit easier with luggage too. As expected York was very busy with tourists. We had a slot booked at the Jorvik Viking centre ( York has a strong viking past) however their main attraction - a ride through a reconstructed viking settlement had broken down so we opted for a refund. Instead we wandered through the (very busy) Shambles - a network of narrow medieval shopping streets and took in views of the city walls before taking a tour of impressive York Minister.

Marla was starting to show some signs of fatigue and with the heat and busyness of the city we decided to take an earlier train to Edinburgh as we had an open ticket. The train was very busy but we were very lucky to get seats. The train journey from York to Edinburgh is very picturesque, cutting through Durham, Newcastle Upon Tyne and Berwick Upon Tweed and hugging the North sea and Firth of Forth coastlines before arriving in Edinburgh, where Grandma and Grandpa were there to greet us.

It's been a long and at times exhausting journey, and we were fortunate enough to stop off in a couple of lovely places, but it's a vastly different experience to jumping on a plane. It has also gone relatively smoothly considering all the different stopovers we have made. Rotterdam has a lot to offer and is very easy to move around in - it's somewhere we would both like to revisit. We are curious now on how our return journey will go in two weeks and what surprises lie in store!