By Ruth Ardsley · 7 min read
Almost every visit to Whitby follows the same line. Park, cross the swing bridge, climb the 199 steps, photograph the abbey, come back down, eat chips. It is a good afternoon and we have had it many times. It also misses most of the town.
The west side
The other bank is where people actually live, and the walk out along the west cliff toward the whalebone arch is better in bad weather than good. There is a bandstand, a long sweep of sand below, and considerably fewer people.
The fish quay
Whitby is still a working port, which you would not always guess from the gift shops. Go down to the quay in the morning and there are boats unloading. It is not a visitor attraction and nobody will explain anything to you, which is rather the point.
The abbey, properly
If you are going up, go early or go late. The ruin sits on a headland with nothing between it and the sea and in a wind it is genuinely dramatic. In the middle of a July afternoon it is a queue.
The steps themselves are shallower than they look. Everyone worries about them and nobody remembers them afterwards.