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.