Day 11: Peak district

21:19 mareku 0 Comments

Chatsworth House

The dining table ready for the Queens Jubilee

Haddon Hall

From one national park to the other over the most interesting, beautiful and curvy roads we continue our way down south. Now we are in the Peak District - which is stunning and has lots of things to do. We visited Chatsworth and Haddon Hall.

Day 10: the rest of York

21:19 mareku 0 Comments

On top of the Minster

Great Organ concert

The medieval streets

York is a wonderful medieval little town - with lots of old stuff to see and of course the famous York Minster. Also here is the National Railway Museum which is one of the biggest in the world (with the Flying Scotsman e.g.). After a quest of more the two years I finally found my silver English soup spoons at Mulberry Hall- so now we really can enjoy soup the proper way...

Day 9: York

21:18 mareku 0 Comments

Castle Howard

Statue Gallery in Castle Howard

James Herriots' House

Calling at James's door

Castle Howard is one of the grandest private residences in Britain and we were lucky to walk around (alone) early in the morning gazing at the magnificent rooms and especially the entry hall. This is where Bridgehead Revisited has been filmed (twice: the TV series and the movie) - so you recongnise quit a lot actually. After the castle we went to an other house: that of James Herriot (aka Alfie Wight) to have a look into the real world of a Yorkshire vet, the TV studio's where the series was recorded and some other fun artifacts of the famous writer/vet.

Day 8: Yorkshire (Dales and Moor)

20:07 mareku 0 Comments

Beatrice Potter

Blackwell House - Art & Craft

Yorkshire Dales

Yorkshire Dales

Rievaulx Abbey

From the lakes we go east to Yorkshire (the Dales and the Moors). But first we take a peak at the house of Beatrice Potter and an other famous Art & craft House (blackwell). Then riding through the dales with its endless stone walls, sheeps and meadows. It is nice, but I had expected it to be even grander. The same for the Yorkshire Moors. Maybe it is because we already saw some amazing landscapes in Scotland and the Lake District, maybe we are riding to fast - I do not know, but it is a bit disappointing.

Day 7 - the lake district and so...

19:15 mareku 0 Comments

Drumlanrig Castle

The Lake District

And further south we go into the Lake District which is very pretty indeed. It was also the day that we said goodbye to Scotland and hello again to England. We had much fun in Scotland and saw some awesome things - we will certainly return (if the Scots provide us with the same weather again that is...). The Lake district is very touristy and there are an awful lot of hotels, inns and B&B's along the several lake borders. We have chosen one of the best along the windermere lake: Merewood hotel which has a terrific view over the lake and let's hope good food as well...
Riding here is really fun with lots of curves and inclines as steep as 20% (up and down).

Day 6 South!

18:44 mareku 0 Comments

Culzean Castle

Culzean again

Finally I had a good night of sleep...

Sheep everywhere you look and ride

Now we have started our long way south on the British Island. We had to stop at Culzean castle of course because it is one of the finest pieces that is designed by Robert Adam from which we already saw George house, Hopetoun and Inveraray earlier this trip. The famous oval staircase and round room didn't let us down and where simply beautiful and with a stunning view of the Ayrshire coast. The were very few people visiting, so we had practically the place for our own. We ended up in Galloway / Dumbfries - the weather still holding up very high temperatures.

Day 5 From Oban to Glasgow

18:36 mareku 0 Comments

To many castles?

Inveraray Castle, the ancestral home of the Duke of Argyle

We started our day at Cruachan, a (man made) hollow mountain which holds the world's first high head reversible pumped storage hydro scheme - a truly amazing engineering achievement. Visiting the plant is fun and leads you trough a tunnel which was dug out by hand through the granite rock by 1300 miners.
Along many lochs and hills we rode to Glasgow, which was a bit of a letdown. The city had clearly better days. Even the Charles Rennie Mackintosh stuff was dissapointing. Our hotel and restaurant compensated that more then enough.