Where do you live again?

We are ex-pats living in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. When we decided to move here and discussed where we’d be living with our friends and family, my great aunt, who has been to England too many times to count, told me that we were moving to the prettiest part of the country. Obviously I can’t say for certain that’s true as we haven’t seen much of the country yet, but I will tell you, it is quite pretty.

Let me first get this straight. We do not live in London or any where close to it.  So no, Asher and Master Archie Mountbatten-Windsor do not have play group together (which with all that drama now, who wants it!) London is approximately 3 and a half hours by car if there isn’t traffic, which would be a miracle. We are north of London in North Yorkshire County, which we have been told time and time again is “God’s country.” 

In the last two and a half months, we have had some time to explore our new town and its surroundings (although admittedly, we have yet to actually take the tour of Harrogate-we’ll get around to it, I’m sure!). Harrogate is a spa town, and is nowadays described as posh. Have no fear (because Brian and I certainly did), posh does not mean hipster. No offense to hipsters, it’s just not our scene. The only thing we share in common with some hipsters is our love of craft beer. Posh means stylish and luxurious. Everyone warned us how expensive it was over here, but really, it’s not that drastically different from the States, especially because tipping culture is quite different. Here, they pay servers decently and there is a service fee added most of the time, so you don’t need to tip. That being said, their customer service is not what we’ve come to expect in the States. You may wait a long time for your bill, or even to order. Everyone is pleasant, just not necessarily in the mentality of instant gratification which we are so accustomed to in the States. 

Anywho, Harrogate is a spa town that originally became popular due to the baths in town, which were recognized for their medicinal qualities. So, really, if you were sick, you came for holiday in Harrogate to experience the magic of the baths. That’s how it started to thrive. Nowadays, it has one of the biggest convention centers in the country and brings in various conferences, etc, as well. It also has a famous strip of land (200 acres) known as The Stray, which is protected by Parliament so it will always be there (or at least until Parliament doesn’t care anymore). On the nice days, The Stray is packed with people who are picnicking, playing games, grilling, and drinking. That’s right. There are no open container laws in England. It’s crazy to just see people walking on the street with their beers and gin and tonics (cause gin is BIG here). Supposedly, I could even be drinking a beer while Brian is driving—a bit insane when you think about it! Don’t worry Mom, we haven’t tried it.

Nowadays, when people come to Harrogate, it is most well known for Betty’s Tea Room. It’s a bit pricey (roughly $28 for an Afternoon Tea), but it is good and the ambiance is nice. Brian and I have been twice. We enjoyed the English Breakfast Tea the most. We also enjoyed the tea sandwiches which are comprised of 4 different types. The first was a cucumber and dill (quite refreshing), the second was a smoked salmon (not for me cause anything slightly raw in the form of fish is unappetizing, but Brian liked it!), the third was a cumin chicken salad (also quite tasty), and finally a ham and rocket (which is arugula). While the sandwiches were tasty, the scones and the deserts take the cake (haha, get it?!). The scones, which are more reminiscent of Irish Soda bread than the traditional scone, were delicious, particularly with the butter and homemade jam. Then, the mini desserts were YUMMY. My favorite was the lemon tart, which made me think of lemon meringue pie, hold the meringue and put inside a delicious crust. Brian loves chocolate so their chocolate treat was his favorite. It is quite rich, but very tasty. 

On the topic of food, we have tried a ridiculous number of restaurants and pubs. When we first got here, we were given stipends for food because we didn’t have an official place to live, so we took that time to figure out what we like in town. I will say, we didn’t feel the need to eat out for a few weeks after we ate out every day for a month! If there is one thing we can say for sure is that there is certainly no shortage of food options in Harrogate, and the options are quite diverse. I am not going to describe every restaurant we went to because, well, I don’t feel like it, and it would get quite boring, but I will tell you our favorites. 

If you’re looking to spend some money for good food, I have two recommendations for you. Sasso’s is a great Italian Restaurant. We went twice and enjoyed our meals both times, and their antipasto appetizer was amazing. We also really enjoyed Tanin Level. It’s what they call “upscale” British food. Sounds a bit like an oxymoron, huh? But it really was quite delicious and their wine selection was fantastic. Their sticky toffee pudding was also on point. For pubs, we of course, have explored our fair share of them. A traditional English pub doesn’t have TV’s, which I appreciate since my husband’s a bit ADHD when a tv is around. Our two local favorites are The Fat Badger and The Old Bell. Both have great casque beer options and the food is good. The Fat Badger has more variety and is a bit more pricey, but Old Bell has a pie of the day (no, not apple, more like Shepherd’s) and every time we’ve gotten a pie, they’ve been really good. 

For breakfast, we do love a local bakery called Manna. They have delicious pan au chocolates and my favorite, flap jacks. No, these are not pancakes, but more like homemade granola bars. And they’re delicious. We also like Tilly Peppers. Really family friendly and down to earth people, and their food is consistently good. Brian went in once to grab breakfast for take away and she asked how far he was going. He pointed across the street and she said, here take these proper plates and bring them back when you’re done. And that breakfast was delicious. 

Our local “happy hour” place, despite that not being a thing here, is called Little Ale House. They always have six casque beers on tap and they are always rotating; however, they always have the same types (bitters, pale ales, stouts, etc.). We haven’t had a beer we didn’t like there yet and the owners are awesome. They’re a young married couple who decided they didn’t want to work in London anymore and moved here and opened this bar. If Brian and I were risk takers, that would be what we would do, just instead of a bar, we’d open a brewery, but you know, we like to play it safe. So we’ll do our fair share by supporting Dani and Rich! 

My favorite place in Harrogate that doesn’t involve food or beer is the Valley Gardens, which we are fortunate enough to live ridiculously close to. They are beautiful gardens that cover about 17 acres of land. There is also a great playground for kids, which I’m sure Asher will love come a few short weeks time! It’s a great place to walk Brewksi, go for a run, listen to music, drink some coffee, you name it. On the days where it isn’t raining hard (cause people go outside when it’s light rain here, because if they didn’t, they might not go outside for days on end!), Valley Gardens is packed with people and dogs. They also host concerts each Sunday in the summer and hold a variety of festivals in town too. We went to the festival called 1940’s Day. It seemed pretty random to me at first, but as Brian explained, the 1940’s were a pretty big deal over here with the World Wars and all. People came dressed in 40’s attire, and there were loads of old military cars and weapons, live music from the 40’s, food trucks, and drinks. It was a beautiful day too, so it was a neat experience. 

Harrogate does have a great deal to offer, and even more so, it’s in a fantastic location. We’ve been able to explore various towns and sites close by, and we still have so much left to explore. We first ventured about 35 minutes away to York, which is a pretty touristy town in that many people stop between London and Edinburgh. We had to go there for some paperwork, but it was a neat place to venture around. We didn’t explore too much of the touristy things because know we will be back many times with visitors, but we did enjoy walking around the city, particularly the quaint old parts of town. The Shambles were really cool to check out. It felt like I was walking around Diagon Alley from Harry Potter with it’s low, Tudor style buildings. They market to that as well as there were many Harry Potter shops there, so I did have my first HP fan girl experience. I’m sure there are plenty more of them to come! We also enjoyed two breweries in town. Shocker! We stopped and had a drink at each and the beer was pretty good. We definitely enjoyed York Brewery more. They also gave us a free bar towel for our bar when we get home, so that was really nice of them! We also went into the York Castle museum. It was…interesting… The museum itself had loads of cool information, but it did feel like someone went into the museum and just puked up random factoids all over the place. When you first start walking through, it’s a timeline of the history of York. This was very helpful since I can’t say I’m well versed in British history. Then you walk into a room which shows what homes would look like from different centuries and from different social classes. Aside from real stuffed dogs (I know, right?), this was really neat to see as well. But then, you walk into rooms filled with toys across the centuries (all the way from racially inappropriate dolls to Nintendo 64), rooms representing the fashion of different decades, etc. Then, on the other side, there is an exhibit on World War I. This part was really interesting as well and seemed pretty organized, until in the middle of the exhibit there was another exhibit on romantic break-ups. The first thing you see in this exhibit is a pair of fluffy handcuffs. If that doesn’t scream WWI, I don’t know what does! The museum itself is in the old female prison of the time, but very little information is given about that. It’s quite an eclectic museum to say the least. Everything else in York we walked around to see such as a massive, beautiful old cathedral in town. It’s quite stunning. There is a big part of the castle Tower still standing which you can explore as well as parts of the old city wall which you can walk on. It’s a neat old town to explore with plenty of food, drink, and tourist options available!

Our second venture out was to a town called Knaresborough. We first went on Mother’s day weekend for a beer festival which was a fundraiser for the local special education school. The festival was neat with many local breweries, but what was most shocking to us, was that the festival was held on school grounds. Beer on school grounds? That’s something I could have lost my job over back home! After we went to the festival, we explored downtown Knaresborough a bit. It’s a beautiful old town built on the river. We went back for the famous Knaresborough Bed Races, which I had never heard of, but Brian had seen them on ESPN in his youth, so he was stoked. We took the train three stops over and went to watch the race. One of Brian’s co-workers told him to go to the Pub “The Worlds End” to watch because you could see the parade on one side, and the race on the other. We got there about an hour before the parade, but there were no seats left outside. We grabbed a table inside and just waited. As we waited, the skies looked more and more ominous, so a table left the edge of the patio outside and we jumped on it, just in time for the skies to open up. You know those umbrellas we use on patios in the States for some shade? Yea, well the Brit’s use them to block the rain! Asher stayed dry and that’s all we cared about, so we drank our Carlsberg’s and watched the race. The theme this year was Yorkshire, so they had floats of all different kinds decorated with all the sights of Yorkshire. Truthfully, I didn’t see much of the parade because of the rain. I was a bit too focused on Asher, but the actual race ran right by us and I saw that. They strip down the floats to the beds and run through these ridiculously tight streets and even across the river that runs through the town. Each team is made up of six adults (they had an all male category, all female category, and mixed gender category) and then one child. The child had to sit on the bed throughout the race. Sign me up for that job! It was definitely unlike anything I’ve ever seen, but I don’t think I’m going to go sign up to run it. It’s definitely a spectacle sport for me!

We’ve also had the chance to visit Fountains Abbey and Ripley Castle, which are two local attractions which are pretty cool to see. Ripley Castle is still a family dwelling for descendants of the Ingleby family who have owned the castle since the late 1200’s. You can take a guided tour of the castle and explore the parts that aren’t used frequently by the family. It was an interesting piece of history, the most memorable part being about Oliver Cromwell. Oliver Cromwell came to the castle to find a member of the family that he knew was fighting against him, but the sister had already helped her brother hide, so Cromwell set up camp there for the night. The sister sat with Cromwell in the room, with a gun underneath her skirt ready to shoot him if he went looking for her brother. She could have changed the entire course of history had Cromwell acted, but instead he slept by the fire, and in the morning, killed all the guards of the castle and bid the sister farewell. You can still see the bullet holes in the caste walls where Cromwell killed the guards and you can presumably see the area of the castle where the brother hid. It was a bit eerie to stand in the same spot Oliver Cromwell did centuries ago. Fountains Abbey is the remains of an old monastery from the 1100’s. It’s amazing to me that something so grand was built that long ago, let alone that much of it is still standing. The grounds of the Abbey are beautiful as well. 

Harrogate is on the outskirts of the Yorkshire Dales, which are gorgeous. They are beautiful green rolling hills, with cute and quaint little British towns scattered throughout. We will be taking a tour of the Dales soon, but we’ve explored some of them. We visited Wensleydale, which is known for its cheese. We didn’t know that at the time, so we will be going back since cheese is its own food group in my opinion. On the outskirts of Wensleydale are the biggest waterfalls in The Dales known as Asygarth Falls. They aren’t big in that they drop a great distance, rather they are spread out. It was a nice little walk through the Dales to see them and they were pretty to see. We also ventured over to Brimham Rocks, which are another famous set of rocks like that of Stonehenge. Brian says they remind him of Devil’s Den in Gettysburg if you’ve ever been. They were pretty cool, and it is amazing how wind and water create such unique things. We took a geological tour of the area which was interesting; however, our tour guide was a bit long winded. The most famous rock from Brimham is the Idol, which has a massive rock sitting on a rock the size of an iPad. As the guide said, it will fall someday, and hopefully not when he’s giving a tour! Nature is a pretty miraculous thing. 

If you’ve made it this far, sorry for the long post! Between getting all of our belongings and unpacking, grad school, and Asher, it’s been hard to get time to write! When you come to visit *cough, cough*, you can be like, I remember that thing you wrote about where people were shot against a wall…can we go there?!? Needless to say, our new home has lots fo offer and I’m excited to share it with you either in person or digitally through my mediocre writing!

In other news, I will write about our jaunt to Belgium shortly, I promise!