Chester to Shrewsbury

We only had a couple of short drives today so we spent a bit more time exploring Chester before we headed off. We went to the Roman Gardens then walked along another section of the walls.

Luckily today was a couple of short drives because getting out of Chester was a nightmare. Claire has been using a combination of Google maps and maps.me to navigate and apart from a couple of hiccups it has been working well. Unfortunately a combination of a left turn instead of a right and Claire developing a cold which has turned her brain to mush (This is Claire's description) meant we ended up changing direction 3 times. A 20 minute drive took us closer to an hour.

Our destination however made up for it. Peter had read about the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct and Canal and he wasn't disappointed. It is the tallest navigable aqueduct in the world, being 39m high and took 10 years to build, from 1795 to 1805. You can walk over it or take a canal boat and we decided to walk. Claire had a few moments where she wasn't sure she'd done the right thing but we made it. We then walked back by the road so that we could see it from ground level.

The view from the aqueduct was spectacular.

Canal boat traffic jam. It is a tight turn for them and the blue one was literally jammed for a little while. The boatman had to get off and give it a good shove to free it.

The end of the day was almost as bad as the beginning. We are staying right in the city centre which is very convenient but there is a maze of one-way streets which took some navigating, then the narrowest opening to the car park that you have ever seen. We nearly missed it. Our room is at the back which means 2 flights of stairs up, then about 4 steps down, then another 4 up then a flight down. Luckily we only needed to bring up one of our big bags.

Shrewsbury Abbey is just across the river from us so we went there first. Claire was particularly interested because it is the setting for Ellis Peter's Cadfael novels. We had a small guided tour then went into the city to look for somewhere to eat tonight.

York to Bakewell to Chester

Bank Holiday Monday, a lovely sunny day and every English person was out and about. We had chosen Bakewell because it was close to 2 of the great houses that we wanted to visit, Chatsworth House and Lyme Park. Both had been used as Pemberley in various productions of Pride and Prejudice so they were high on the list of Claire's places to visit. We had a couple of stops on the way to Bakewell including Castleton but there were so many people around that we decided to not try to visit Chatsworth House and pushed on to Bakewell. It took us about 20 minutes to travel the last 2 kilometres into town.

Bakewell is a lovely village with a river running through it and once the crowds had cleared we had a lovely night.

After missing Chatsworth House the day before we were glad to wake to another sunny day. First stop Lyme Park. It was stunning. The rhododendron garden was at its best and the rest of the place lived up to Claire'e expectations, with one exception. No Mr Darcy!

We spent a couple of hours there, then it was a short drive to Chester, giving us time to have a look around in the afternoon. Chester's city wall is almost complete so it is possible to do a full circuit of the town. We were staying near Watergate which is the western gate so we walked through town to the Eastgate then started walking around the wall. Past the Cathedral we saw a sign to the Cathedral Falconry. As most of you know Claire finds it hard to resist anything to do with birds of prey. There was an interesting flight show followed by an opportunity to hold a bird and they also had snakes on display.

Around York

Another lovely English summer day and we decided to visit Fountains Abbey which we had missed on the way to York. Peter had also heard about Brimham Rocks in the same area so we planned a drive to see both. We like to stop about every half hour if we can and Knaresborough was the spot we chose. It was one of those pure flukes that we have struck a few times. Another old castle ruin but the view over the valley was lovely.

Next stop Brimham Rocks, a National Trust protected area of dramatic rock formations overlooking moorland. Lots of families with children climbing on the rocks. It was great.

That's as far as he got.

Claire not even pretending to climb.

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal is a World Heritage Site and it isn't hard to see why. The ruins of the abbey are spectacular, it is amazing to imagine what it would have been like in its glory. It is tucked away in a valley and you feel that it should be in the middle of a large city.

Next to the Abbey is the Studley Royal Water Gardens, a Georgian era garden of ponds and follies.

We walked back along the river and saw the other side of the Abbey ruins.

A very full day and when we got back to York we headed to the pub across the road. It isn't often that we eat at the same place for 3 nights in a row but "The Fox and Roman" has been such good value that we kept going back. The food is great and the staff are excellent. We shared a Sunday roast platter tonight and couldn't finish it all. We asked about the unusual name and apparently it used to be called "The Fox" but when they were extending the car park a few years ago they found Roman artifacts and a skeleton so they changed the name.

York

The rain has gone so we had a great day in York. We started with a visit to Clifford's Tower. It is all that remains of York Castle. Peter wasn't disappointed that there wasn't more to explore.

We tried to find a pub for Peter to watch the Penrith - St George game but the only sports pub we found wasn't open. Our next stop was the Jorvik Viking Centre. It is an interesting mix of recreation, animatronics and live action. The most interesting part was the presentation of the evidence from the archaeological dig on which the show is based.

While we were in the queue the guy doing the bag search asked us where we were from. We are used to our answer of Canberra being met with a blank stare, but his response was "I've just posted a Raiders jumper to Australia". Apparently he sells a lot of jumpers on Ebay. He was showing Peter some of the items he has for sale. After we left the centre Peter asked him if he would look up the score of the game. He was more than happy to oblige and Peter was happy with the result.

We couldn't miss a walk along The Shambles, a well preserved street of medieval buildings. It was used for the filming of Diagon Alley in the Harry Potter films and there are lots of Harry Potter themed shops.

York has more intact walls than any other city in England so we had to walk along a section.

Claire was planning to visit York Minster but Peter wasn't interested so after walking through the Museum Gardens and viewing the ruins of St Mary's Abbey we went our separate ways.

Claire was in time to join a guided tour of the Minster. It was fascinating. Each guide has their own area of interest and this guide knew a lot about the stained glass windows.

This one is called the Heart of York.

The ceiling of the Chapter House.

The Rose Window.

The tour lasted an hour then Claire spent another hour enjoying the beauty of the Cathedral.