Last weekend I finally headed up to York to visit a couple of friend Toni and Claire who have been living up there since late last year sometime. I’d promised to visit them sometime this year and finally got a weekend that worked for all of us. It was great seeing both of them and they were fantastic hosts for the weekend.
Getting to York was surprisingly easy. Even though it’s very close to the north most part of England, it only took two hours to get there from Kings Cross station via one of the National Express trains. I booked my tickets in advance but didn’t really get a super cheap fare but at least I managed to reserve my seats which made a huge difference heading up there on a manically busy Friday evening at Kings Cross station. Better yet you get to choose what sort of seat you had, including whether or not you have a table and powerpoint (helpful to plugin in if you need to charge your phone or laptop!)
Yorkshire is, of course, well known for its tea and there are plenty of places to choose from to sit and have a pot. Fortunately Claire knew the best place to go in York… Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms. It was obviously popular with locals with lots of “ladies lunching”, as well as quite a few groups of tourists. We waited outside in a queue for a table upstairs and it didn’t take too long as they seemed to have enough turn around.
One of the other significant places to visit is the York Minster, apparently the largest gothic cathedral in Europe. Regardless of whether or not their claim is true, it certainly is impressive and the £6 is worth walking around inside. They even have a huge tower that you can climb up for a marginal cost but we decided to skip it with the queue not looking like it was moving and stretching quite some distance inside.
We also visited Harrogate and it took me a while to make the connection with the Harrogate Spa Water that you sometimes see around. The country is absolutely gorgeous with large lush green fields all over the place and very clean tasting waters. It was a great place to take Claire and Toni’s energetic labrador for a walk and a place to socialise with many other dogs. We couldn’t help but stop and laugh (and take a photo) of the following on the way back:
It was a great weekend to spend in the country and well worth heading up there for a weekend break. It certainly beat the crazy rush to get to airports and then arrive late in some European country. Oh, and it didn’t seem so grim up north.