Today we travelled to Edinburgh the long way round. We started out the day by heading toward the Lake District National Park from the Yorkshire Dales down through to Lancanshire along the Pennines Range . The Yorkshire Dales is the home of the All Creatures Great and Small author James Herriot, and the Bronte sisters.
The landscape, is beautiful and a green you can only imagine. Stone fences line the paddocks that are filled with white sheep. There are old stone farmhouses everywhere and these views are broken up by quaint little villages.
The tour director told us that not a lot of companies come through this way. I can't understand why! Everywhere you look he views are amazing .
We stopped for a break in the small village of Settle (one of the less interesting town names) and had a wander around. The streets were lined with cobble stones and all the houses were built into the hill making for very steep streets. You would certainly stay fit if you walked down to get the paper each day.
We found a cute little shop that every small town should have.
Our next stop was Grasmere an absolutely beautiful village set alongside a lake in the Lake District National Park. This was the home of WilliamWordsworth. The houses in this village look quite different from those on Yorkshire because they are made from stacked slate rather than stone. This is also a place that Beatrix Potter loved and frequented often. She loved it so much she bought as much property as she could. Upon her death she left this property to the National Trust and this became the inspiration of the National Park.
Just over the Scottish border we called into Gretna Green which was the place that young lovers in years gone by went to elope. It's very commercialised and more of mini shopping centre. There is a small museum where can touch the anvil used to make the rings for good luck.
As we head toward Edinburgh for our next overnight stay the landscape changes again. We're now in the land of gentle rolling hills dotted with bright yellow gorse but as you lookup on the higher ridges it's starting to look a bit more rugged where the heath grows. Unfortunately the heath is not flowering at the moment. The villages are much further apart but still just as pretty. Oh, and there are lots of sheep!
In the evening we went to watch the Taste of Scotland Scottish Show. It was held in the old stables at Prestonfield, a home for Sir James Dick, Lord Provost of Edinburgh. We had our first taste of haggis and I have to say it was much tastier than expected.
The show was a bit cheesy at the start but warmed up toward the end, although that may have been the few wines I drank. The show finished about 10:00pm and when we walked outside it was still light. The days are very long in Scotland...it's a weird feeling!
No comments:
Post a Comment