In general, Northern England is (to use a British expression) just lovely. Who couldn't fall in love with green, rolling hills and dales dotted with beautiful flowers and precious cottages.
Clive picked us up at the train station in York and we spent an afternoon there before heading to his place in Harrogate. York is a very nice, medieval city, with its higlights being the York Minster Church and the old city wall. It's also nice to walk through its maze of tiny streets.
Our home base, Harrogate, is also a nice town. It's mostly known for its spas, but we didn't check any out. Typical of England, it is clean, tidy and well organized. We enjoyed getting a glimpse into Clive's new life, which included a visit to his favorite pub.
In addition to York and Harrogate, we spent a day in the countryside, where we visited some old druid ruins (very cool!) and the small town of Masham, known for The Black Sheep Brewery. On our way to the brewery we came across a local cricket match. And so we decided to pull up a spot on the grass and watch for a while. Although it was a typical British thing to do, I found the game to be pretty dull. I know a lot of people find American baseball to be very dull, but it's much more exciting than cricket! We ended our day (or evening) in Masham at a pub that was supposed to have live music and a beer festival. The beer festival ended up being 3 local beers on tap and there was no music to speak of. Now, that bad advertising was not typically British...more like Belgian! Nevertheless, we had a good time and entertained ourselves by playing darts and acting very immature!
York
York Minster
Northern Europe's largest Gothic cathedral
View From Top of York Minster
The Medieval Streets of York
Fun at a Typical English Pub
It was here that Clive enlightened us about an imprtant element of English pub culture...the ordering process. First, ordering always takes place at the bar (not at the table) and a server delivers your food and drink. Second, there's no "actual queue" for this and that while it looks chaotic to an outsider, there is some sort of unspoken method (that only British people are privvy to) in which the bar tender takes the orders. Apparently, it is easy to spot tourists because they are usually confused by all of this!
A Drive in the Countryside
We couldn't resist!
Druid Ruins Site
Gabi's UK Driving Experience
An Interesting Hotel that Looks Like a Castle
Masham
Black Sheep Brewery
Fun at the Pub
My only complaint is that Clive's apartment is not set up for the vertically challenged!
