End of Summer Adventures

There are times when it feels like we are on a really long vacation. I mean, it certainly feels that way to me (probably not Brian since he goes to work daily). But seriously, I’ve been working since I was 14. So, to not have to go to work, and to be living in another country, is kind of a like a vacation to me. Don’t get me wrong. Ash cash (I call him that a lot) keeps me super busy and most days around 3 p.m. I still hit my wall and want a nap. But, not having to grade copious amounts of paper slewed with terrible grammar and not having to develop lessons daily makes it feel vacation-esque. On top of that, you add the really cool local places to see and our mini-vacations, it really does feel like we are off on a three year adventure. 

Since Belgium, we’ve seen quote a few local tourist attractions and went on a mini-getaway to Scotland. When we started settling in and meeting new people, many of Brian’s colleagues hinted at trying to get away at least once a month. While this is quite ambitious, we are going to try and stick to it. So, with that in mind, we’ve booked a few trips, and planned outings to meet those demands.

Not too long after Belgium, I met up with my friend Sherry and her family in York. Brian was supposed to come too, but silly him for catching a cold. Having been to York, I just went around with the Hibbard’s because I really just wanted to see them. Although, this time I did go into York Minster, the largest Cathedral in Yorkshire. It was really stunning and the historical influences were interesting. The stained glass windows were very intricate, and some of them had so much going on they were hard to follow. The crypts were also really interesting to see. We ate lunch in the Shambles district and the food was tasty and the beer was good. We also walked along the Wall and grabbed a beer on the water. All in all, it was nice to see some friends from home and the weather was great too!

Towards the end of July, our friend Carrie came to visit. She was our first guest in our new home! She grabbed the train from London and spent the weekend here with us. When she first got here, we picked her up at the train station and went straight to a pub for some beer and grub. It was nice to catch up and, since I’m always hungry, I was down for some food. On Saturday, we took Carrie to see Fountain’s Abbey. The weather was messing with us a bit, but we thought we could beat the rain. So we drove the 25 minutes to the Abbey. When we got there it was raining, but as we’ve been told, you can’t let the rain stop you in England. Brian got out to set up the stroller for Asher. As soon as he stepped out, it was like the skies opened up and buckets of rain started to fall. Carrie and I looked at each other and decided that perhaps a day at the breweries was more appropriate. So, yelling over the rain to Brian, he packed it back up, got in the car, and off to Black Sheep and Theakston Breweries we went. Now, of course, Brian and I had been to these two before as they are well known local breweries, so we were excited to return. Theakston has been around since 1827 and Black Sheep since 1992. The owner of Black sheep is a member of the Theakston family; however, when Theakston decided to sell to a national brewery, he decided to be the “black sheep” of the family and open his own independent brewery. Obviously, that worked out well for him. Anywho, we got to Black Sheep and parked, but when we went in, it was clear that we weren’t going to get a table since everyone else had the same idea for a rainy day, so off to Theakston we went. Theakston Brewery is really neat and has the traditional English pub feel. Their beer of the month was a Schwarzbier (black lager), which is right up my alley, so we were happy to have a pint there before going to grab some lunch. After lunch, the weather looked to have turned in our favor, so back to Fountain’s Abbey we went. We roamed around the ancient ruins and then headed towards a look out point that Brian’s co-worker suggested as one of the better views of the Abbey. The walk was nice, but the view was ok. The construction and tree coverage didn’t help. As we were walking back, the skies began to look more and more ominous and sure enough, the skies opened up on us. Fountains Abbey has ZERO cover, so needless to say, we looked like a bunch of wet fools by the time we made it back, but despite that, it was an enjoyable outing. 

The next day, since Carrie is an avid Harry Potter fan like me, we decided to venture to Malham Cove. Not only is this a beautiful site in the Yorkshire Dales, but it is also home to the scene in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 where Harry and Hermione apparate after Ron gets all bent out of shape after wearing the horcrux too long and ditches them. Malham Cove itself is a beautiful limestone formation in the Dales. It was originally formed by a waterfall roughly 15, 000 years ago; however, they recently found limestone they believe to be older than 50,000 years old. It is quite the hike up hundreds of steps, especially with an additional 18 pounds in the carrier, but well worth the views. To get to the Cove itself, you hike through farm fields where you literally cross paths with cows and sheep. You follow a little creek to the cove before tackling the steps. The weather was much more cooperative here, and it ended up being a lovely outing. After Malham, we grabbed lunch at the local pub before heading to Skipton Castle. Skipton castle is a well-maintained medieval castle. It withstood a three year siege during the civil war and was last owned by Lady Anne Clifford who maintained the castle and worked to preserve its history. It was neat to walk through the battlements and the individual rooms to see what life was like. On our way back to town we stopped at the Queens Head Pub for dinner. We went here one of our first days in town with our sponsors and discovered that the Garbutt family owns it (maybe a relation?!) but their steak and ale pie is the best we’ve had so far. Their sticky toffee pudding is also right on point so we had to give Carrie the proper Sunday roast experience here!

A few weeks after Carrie’s visit, we went to venture to a local town call Pateley Bridge. It is a quaint little English town at the bottom of a dale (which by the way, essentially means valley). We were told to try some local pies there. There are two butchers in town, and it depends who you talk to, which one is best. There is Weatherhead’s and Kendall’s. When we first arrived, Weatherhead’s was the first one we stumbled upon so we grabbed a pork and apple pie and a traditional pork pie here. They were freshly made and boy were they delicious. We walked through the small town and on our way back we tried Kendall’s pies too. The winner? Weatherhead’s. They were tastier for sure. There isn’t much in the town itself, but it’s adorable and offers good pies, so well worth the visit. If you haven’t caught on, Brian and I tend to judge places we visit on three things: food, beer, and aesthetics. Pateley Bridge offered all three. 

That same weekend, on Sunday, we decided to take a hike with some friends. So, in the Yorkshire Dales, there are three peaks you can hike which are the tallest peaks in the Dales. We decided to hike up Pen-y-Ghent. This is the lowest of the three tallest peaks in the dales. It’s roughly 2, 300 feet, so not exactly a mountain. My anxious self was worried about the pending storms that were forecasted because there aren’t exactly places to hide in valleys if that were to occur, but luckily the weather held off. It didn’t help that you could see for miles so the ominous skies were hovering; however, it did help make it not so hot! The hike was perfect in that it was a little over 6 miles, the incline wasn’t terrible or too steep, and minimal scrambling was necessary which was doable even while carrying Asher. (Side note: I know I’m often seen carrying Asher, but that’s because I told Brian once he hits 25 pounds, that’s all him, so it’s only fair that I take the load now. He does offer, I’m just trying to be “fair” because Asher will be 25 lbs before we know it and Brian will be on permanent carrying duty for hikes, which I know we will continue to do a lot of!). The views over the Dales were spectacular and the pictures really don’t do them justice! After our hike, we all decided to visit a relatively local famous pub (40 minutes away) for dinner. The Craven Arms is one of the only places left in the Dales with a thatched roof. The ambience inside was really neat. The food was pretty good too, but admittedly, it was so talked up that I didn’t think it was as good as people made it sound, but it also doesn’t take much to please me 🙂 

When Brian and I were discussing if we were going to go anywhere in August, we almost decided not to. Since Brian is taking two weeks off in September to head back to the States to participate in some cool peoples’ weddings, he didn’t really want to take time, which I totally get. However, if we didn’t go somewhere, we were already messing with our going somewhere once a month. So, I did a little research and looked for places within a four hour radius that had decent hiking that we could get away to. The hard part of this is that August is prime vacation time for pretty much all of Europe since kids are out of school for six weeks, so the price of everything is a bit inflated. After a bit of research, we landed on a place called St. Abb’s in Scotland. It’s only about three hours from here on the eastern coast of Scotland. Another thing we had to consider was we needed a place that was dog friendly because all of the kennels were booked solid, so Brewski was coming on our road trip! That being said, it’s really not hard AT ALL to find dog friendly places because they love their dogs here. When looking at hotels, we were trying to find reasonably priced, dog-friendly place, but the only places coming up in our budgets were the traditional inns of England and Scotland. That’s right, the one’s above the pubs! You never know until you try right? We found a place with good reviews in Berwick-upon-Tweed, which is in England just south of the Scottish Border. Before booking, Brian called to see how much more it would cost with a dog. Here’s how that conversation went:

B: Hi, yes. I’m calling to see how much more it costs a night to bring a dog?

Man: What kind of dog is it? Is it normal sized?

B: Umm, yes. He’s a husky mix. Medium sized.

Man: Oh, ok. It doesn’t cost any extra. We only charge for horses and bears.

B:….ok, thanks.

No joke, that’s how that convo went. Now, was the man joking or was he serious? Who has bears? What? Anywho, we booked the hotel. But, there were no bears there when we went, which was admittedly, a bit disappointing. 

Brian took Friday off, so we got up Friday and hit the road right around Asher’s nap time. On our way up, we decided to stop in Durham to go see the Durham Cathedral, and mainly the gardens, because guess what they were in? DING DING DING, you got it right! They are in Harry Potter. The gardens of Durham Cathedral were used for the courtyard scenes in Harry Potter, so Brian appeased me a bit here. However, driving in Durham was a bit confusing. There are places, who knew, that actually charge you a toll to simply drive through town. Luckily Brian saw the sign and called to pay the 2 pound fee, because if he hadn’t, we would have received a 50 pound ticket in the mail! We had lunch in Durham at the Shakespeare pub which is in a 12th century building. It’s a very traditional English pub and is also one of the most “haunted” places in Durham. We mainly chose it because it had good reviews for food and was dog friendly. We enjoyed our meal there before heading towards Berwick. We wanted to stop at Alnwick Castle too, which is also from Harry Potter (it’s Hogwarts!), but it wasn’t dog friendly, so we will have to go back! 

Our hotel wasn’t far from the Holy Island, which is only an island during high tide. There is a Pilgrim’s Walk to the island, but it’s three miles and was still very wet, so we drove on to the island. We tried to visit on Friday, but we got there around 4:10 and everything closed around 4:00 so we decided we’d go back. We had dinner at our hotel. It was pretty good, but pretty traditional. The inn was clean and for the most part, pretty quiet. For our first experience in an inn above a bar, it really wasn’t bad; however, it was somewhat in the middle of nowhere. While this worked to our advantage as far as noise level was concerned for Asher, it did not have much for us to do. Anywho, on Saturday Asher woke up super early so we headed out. We drove to Eyemouth, Scotland which was only about fifteen minutes from our hotel. Eyemouth is on the coast and was a pretty town. Most of it was still closed as it was only 7:30 in the morning, but we found a bakery and got some coffee and breakfast to eat on the coastline. After that, we drove to St. Abb’s. The weather was forecasted to have a bit of rain, which isn’t uncommon by any means, but we were prepared. The hike around St. Abb’s is a little over four miles. We drove to the parking lot, paid to park (which we later realized we didn’t have to because we are National Trust members, silly us). When we parked, we could see a video crew. Brian kept insisting that they were shooting something bigger here because it was super expensive equipment, etc. He was a bit obsessed with trying to figure it out. I didn’t really care. 

Anyway, we set out on our hike. As we made our way up the coastline, a man told us that it was possible they’d ask us to wait if they were shooting at the time. We said that was fine and kept walking. Sure enough, a man did stop us and pointed to the group of people on the side and said “they’re finishing up shooting, can you wait a few minutes please?” Brian asked him what it was that they were shooting and the guy was very nonchalant saying he didn’t know, perhaps some advert or something. At this point, we could see a pretty expensive drone off the coast line too. Then, a mom and her son came up. The son, who was probably 12ish,  was clearly in costume of some sort (looked like 70’s attire with bellbottoms, flower power shirt, etc.) A few minutes went by and they let us walk through. There was no one famous to be seen and Brian and I carried on. As soon as we were far enough away, Brian was adamant that they were not shooting an advertisement, it’s something bigger. He continued to obsess about it all day. Thank god for google because we later learned that it was seemingly Harry Styles’ new music video (not yet released). I don’t think Harry Styles was there at the time, but truthfully, if he was, I’m not sure we would have known who he was!

Anyway, the hike itself was stunning. We started out and it was a bit dreary, and even started raining a smidge heavier than we would have liked. There was a brief moment of contemplation as to whether we should continue on the hike, but we decided to power through and boy were we glad we did. The rain lasted maybe fifteen minutes, and before we knew it, it was sunny and beautiful. The sights at St. Abbs reminded us of the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland. The green landscape meeting the jagged, rocky edges against the North Sea were stunning. 

After the hike, we headed back towards the Holy Island. We parked the car, again looking at the threatening skies, and ventured towards the Lindisfarne Castle and priory ruins. It started to rain, but nothing more than a heavy drizzle. We walked to the castle first, as it was the farthest out on the island and figured we would make our way back. The castle itself was built in the 1550’s and originally served as a fort for soldiers watching the English boarders; however, in the early 1900’s, Edward Lutyen transformed the castle fort into a holiday home, which is how it appears today. There are still remnants of the fortified castle; however, most of it appears to be the holiday home that it ultimately became. After exploring the castle, we ventured back towards the town and to see the Priory ruins. These are similar to those of Fountains Abbey; however, they are much smaller. We walked towards the old chapel on the island and were able to hear a choir practicing. Sometimes, there really is nothing more peaceful than choir music in an old stone chapel. After meandering through there, we went to town to grab a pint at the local pub called “The Ship Inn.” It was a very traditional English pub and the beer was good.

The next day we woke up and started to head back towards Harrogate, but made a quick stop at Cragside, another National Trust site. Cragside is the first ever home to be lit on hydro-power. It’s a beautiful Victorian manor and estate on the outskirts of Northumberland’s National Park. Lord Armstrong, a man far beyond his time, was an inventor and he created this home and supported it via hydroelectricity. There are also numerous other gadgets of his creation in his home. The surrounding woodlands and gardens are also stunning, even on a cloudy day. It was well worth the stop! Overall, our mini-vacation to Scotland and Berwick went really well and offered us some beautiful views and neat history. 

Admittedly, it took me a long time to get this post out, so I apologize. Our two week venture to the states, plus other commitments, did slow me up a bit, but I promise to be better. I’ll write another post soon about the new, local hikes we’ve done as well as some really cool happenings here in Harrogate. Then, before we know it, we will be heading to Florence, Italy for a weekend jaunt! So, hopefully you’ll hear a lot from me! 

Cheers until then, my friends!