I took the train up to Leeds in West Yorkshire to stay with Neil (our accountant who I met in Portugal) and his wife Liz. Neil picked me up from the train and we went for a drink at the local before heading back to their place on the outskirts of Leeds. Had a great night chatting and drinking a fair amount of wine :) They have a really nice house and it was nice to stay with friends for a change.
On Saturday we headed out for a day in the Yorkshire Dales. We drove through a couple small villages and up to Bolton Abbey. The area was beautiful and so green! There was a Priory there and gorgeous grounds with a river running through it. Bolton Abbey sits on the estate where the Duke of Devonshire lives (or maybe it was his son lives, one of the two). We wondered around the Priory and it's cemetery then down through the field to the river. There was a bridge across but also some some very cool stepping stones.. you can guess which I took!
Lucky I had my trek boots on because some of the stones were actually fairly low in the water and I was getting pretty wet, go the waterproof boots! We went for a walk through the woods and along the river, it's a beautiful area. We also headed up the river to a place called The Strid which is a really dangerous part due to the hidden whirlpools that get created. If you fell in there you'd be in a bit of trouble!
We drove on to Linton, a small village in the Dales, and had a bite to eat and drink at the local pub which was full of Morris dancers in their crazy getups. We walked over to the next town Grassington and came across a river, bridge and small waterfall & rapids. Got some great shots of the beautiful green mossy rocks. Grassington was a cute village with lots of arts & crafty shops. The Morris dancers had moved on here too so we watched them for a while, doing crazy dances with their sticks, handkerchiefs and a pigs bladder (yep no idea bout that one!).
We headed further into the National Park to Litton where we were going to have dinner but the pub didn't open early enough so we just went for a walk up the hill.. and kept going up and up. We got pretty high up which gave spectacular views back down the valley.We stopped at a pub on the river on the way back to Leeds before having dinner at a fish and chip restaurant called Mergatroyds (I couldn't stop thinking of Transformers!) where I had the unpleasant experience of trying mushy peas... can't say I'll ever get into that strange English food.
On Sunday we went to Fountains Abbey, a large ruin of an Abbey monastery closed by King Henry VIII. It dates back to the 1100s! The land around the abbey was gifted to the National Trust and it was huge with a lake and deer park (which we sadly didn't see any of).The ruins were amazing with a couple of rooms almost intake except for the roof (which the King had removed so the monks couldn't return). The columns in one of the big gallery rooms were impressively tall. I loved walking through the stone ruins. There were quite a few museum buildings around the grounds, like the old mill, which had information on the history of the abbey. The monks used to farm a lot of the land.
We walked around the lake and through various parts of the grounds and into the church on the edge of the deer park. It had beautiful marble work in extraordinary colours (purple, pink and green).After leaving the Abbey we drove back through Harrogate, a pretty town which apparently is quite popular with the well-off and I could see why, and enjoyed a late lunch/early dinner at a yummy cafe. The food was fantastic and I got to try traditional Yorkshire pudding.. not bad :)
A great way to end my weekend in Yorkshire, Neil and Liz were so good to me over the weekend. I had such a great time.
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