We left our cottage just after 9am to travel to York. We had a quick stop at the Gingerbread shop in Grasmere as it wasn’t open over Christmas. Well worth the visit! I had read that the shop was small but wasn’t expecting it to only be a tiny kiosk type shop with a lady behind the counter. The gingerbread is delicious and is made fresh everyday and shipped throughout the country and even overseas.
We popped into the Herdy shop, a brand of sheep themed products based on the Herdwick sheep farmed in the Lake District. Our cottage had a lot of things from the Herdy shop in it.
We left Grasmere at around 10am and drove North toward Keswick then past Penrith and down toward Kirkby Stephen. We first drove a scenic route along Thirlmere lake, which was really stunning!
The famous Herdwick sheep.
Most of the first part of our drive after Keswick was on highway or dual carriage roads. Then we left the main roads to drive towards Muker. As we drove along on the narrow country road, we started noticing the snow more and more on the ground right next to the road until we were suddenly surrounded by road was very icy so it slowed us down a bit but fortunately it wasn’t a long stretch.
We got excited at this scene, and then went over the next little hill....
The sheep in the Yorkshire Dales are called Swaledale sheep. Very inquisitive and stop and look at us as we take a photo! They look a bit like mountain goats crossed with dogs.
The snow cleared as we dropped in altitude towards Muker. We found the Swaledale Woolens shop that we visited 27 years ago. Next door was the Farmers Arms pub we planned to have lunch at. Such a good idea as the food was delicious home-style food and the pub had a great quaint atmosphere.
This was a giant Yorkshire pudding topped with spotted pork sausage, veggies and gravy.
We left Muker reluctantly, it would be such a great place to stay! Maybe one day! ...when it’s warmer! We continued a few kilometers on small county roads but eventually were taken onto a highway towards York. They were spraying salt onto the road in the middle of the traffic and the cars just casually passed by the truck ...
We arrived in York at around 3pm. We dropped off our luggage at the huge Principal Hotel and then drove to take our car to Avis which was just outside the city walls. Easy enough to find and then we walked back through the city to our hotel. We stopped off at many shops along they way, through The Shambles and past The shop who must not be named. I’ve never seen so many people! We thought Chester was busy!
We got back to the hotel exhausted and decided to eat in the pub at the hotel. Not such a good choice, but you can’t win them all! Our hotel is a little disappointing. No aircon in the rooms and if you open the window, lots of city noise outside. Who would think with rfeezing temperature outside, you get hot in the hotel so much you open the window. The decor in the hotel is really elegant in calm muted beige, grey and cream. The lounge areas downstairs are particularly nicely decorated. Gorgeous Christmas decor too. Even a large gingerbread village of York in the lounge.
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