Day8 – North Yorkshire (Saturday, June28th)
After a peaceful night in York, we headed east to North Yorkshire & the edge of the Yorkshire Dales. Driving through the smaller villages, it’s always a shame that we couldn’t stop at every one. You do get overloaded with quaint, cute, and old; so we kept driving. We drove across the River Nidd in Knaresborough, and I did have to pull over; it was too photogenic to pass by. We were aiming for Harrogate for ‘elevenses’ , and after a wrong turn or two, got there. Harrogate is a spa town that reminded me of Saratoga Springs, NY. There is some money there; I saw more Astin Martins in Harrogate than anywhere else.
Our main destination for the day was Skipton Castle – one of the most complete and well preserved medieval castles in England. After seeing lots of ruins, it was neat to walk through an intact castle. To stretch our legs we walked through Skipton Woods; along a canal, a creek, and finally along a field lined with nice dry-stone walls. Before getting on the road we were induced to try a 99p ice cream cone, with a flake. I won’t try to explain, but there’s a BBC article below that does try.
Haworth and the Pennines was next on the list – this area is famous mainly for the Bronte sisters. They all lived (and died very young) in this village. It’s a very small, picturesque village on top of hill, with many trails leading off through the moors. We parked next to its famous railway station – at the bottom of the hill, and had a long walk up. The graveyard of the parsonage had more gravestones per square foot than any I’ve ever seen, I read that 20-60000 bodies were buried there. Apparently it was closed when most of the town’s water pollution was traced to water leaching through the graveyard.
On our way back to Sheffield we stopped in the very small village of Hebden Bridge and tried to have dinner. Of our two options one was a towny bar and the other was a Thai restaurant that didn’t have any room. So we drove back to Sheffield and ate around the corner from Vanessa’s flat.
http://matthewmperry.zenfolio.com/uk08/slideshow
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/5223328.stm