Travel: Get the abbey habit in Whitby

IT’S a real brain teaser.

How the heck did we get into this situation – and how do we get out?

We’re in a darkened room and if we can’t work out how to get the padlock on the door open then it seems we’re trapped.

Actually – thankfully – we do know there’s no chance of us being hopelessly trapped forever, doomed never to see the outside again.

We’re in Eskape, one of Whitby’s newest attractions.

It’s located in an old workhouse in the North Yorkshire seaside favourite, just a few minutes’ walk from the famous Abbey.

The idea is you solve a series of fiendishly difficult clues within an hour – trunks to open, letters to decode, puzzles to work out.

In near darkness and with the room set up as an old warehouse looked after by a night watchman, it’s far from easy.

If you get stuck, clues are slipped under the door. Even so, we fall agonisingly short, with time running out just as we get to the final clue.

It’s all brilliant fun, though, and safely out, we decide to go from Whitby’s newest attraction to the oldest, that magnificent Abbey.

There’s a car park at the top if you want save your legs, but we choose what are known as the 199 Steps from the town.

Yes, there are indeed one short of a round 200 – we breathlessly counted every one. But both the Abbey and the stunning views are well worth it.

You can’t miss the ruins from wherever you are in or around Whitby and they’re just as impressive up close. The Benedictine Abbey (english-heritage.org.uk) has been sitting on the headland since the 11th Century and the spiralling stonework you wander around dates from the 13th.

In fact, the headland was first settled as a monastery in AD657, becoming one of the most important religious centres in the Anglo-Saxon world.

You can lose yourself in the history here for a good couple of hours between the ruins and the splendid visitor centre.

The ruins were the inspiration for Bram Stoker and his famous vampire and we reckoned we couldn’t visit this Yorkshire seaside favourite without a flavour of one of its other associations.

The Dracula Experience (draculaexperience.co.uk) mixes animated scenes, special effects and live actors – who got right into the spooky spirit of things – to provide a spine-tinglingly fun tour to get your teeth into.

All this puffing up steps, puzzling out mysteries and getting spooked had worked up a fair old hunger.

Whitby is fame for its seafood, especially its fish and chips.

But we’d been tipped off about an eatery that was a real cut above.

Andrew Pern is one of Yorkshire’s most respected chefs. He’s associated with his Michelin-starred pub The Star Inn at Harome – a regular fixture on lists of Britain’s best – but more recently he’s returned to his hometown.

The Star Inn The Harbour is the restaurant that sits right opposite the railway station and directly on the quayside.

That means that the catches couldn’t be fresher – the first boat tied up is the one that catches the lobsters on the menu – or the views more panoramic.

The big windows look right over the harbour and up to the Abbey.

The welcome was warm and the dishes sensational.

While seafood is the speciality, there’s plenty more to choose from.

The goujons and the cod were melt-in-the-mouth marvellous but space had to be left for dessert – come on, the place has its own ice cream parlour!

The ginger parkin is one of Andrew’s signature dishes and was out of this world. All in all, the very best taste of Whitby.

Whitby’s also famous for its association with one seafarer in particular and the Captain Cook Museum (cookmuseumwhitby.co.uk) is a great place to check out his remarkable story and you can even see where he bunked in the roof space.

And to mark 2018’s 250th anniversary of Cook’s Endeavour expedition, a replica of the vessel will soon become yet another of the town’s must-sees.

Whether it’s old or new, Whitby really does have it all.

The Facts

Details of Whitby’s original Escape Rooms are at eskapewhitby.co.uk
For reservations at the Star Inn, starinntheharbour.co.uk
All tourism info from Yorkshire.com