Sept 19 Harrogate -- I love this place!


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September 25th 2008
Published: September 25th 2008
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Friday, Sept 19, Leaving Scotland for Harrogate, England

I went down right away for bkfst, hoping for hot food, but no joy - it was already cool from coming from across the street. We loaded up and headed out of Edinburgh, driving by more plain soot-stained limestone buildings (Georgian, some people think they're beautiful; I think they're kind of homely, especially since there are so many of them with no variety). There certainly is much more in Edinburgh that I would like to see (like Holyrood Palace, not offered as we expected) but I don't feel a need to come back - many people love it, as I previously mentioned - guess I'm not a city person anymore.

Our last Scotland stop was at Abbotsford, Sir Walter Scott's home that he built after making a fair amount of money from his writings - it's fairly interesting, with nice grounds, but not especially grand (on the scale of other places I've seen on this trip). I did make a few purchases (under L20.00) in the gift shop - it was nice, and took quite a few pictures (which of course are not allowed in the house). There are only 6-7 rooms or so open to visiting.

We had a quick photo stop at the border - a large stone with Scotland on one side, and England on the other. And a piper who fortunately was on the other side of the road when we got there, so got photos without him there playing. I did take one shot of him, and then popped back onto the bus to get away from the noise (I'm not a fan of bagpipes, I guess - altho I have heard some players that I enjoyed).

As we got more into England, the rolling hills and sheep got more scenic (even with as many people as live in England, esp. London, I have to wonder if there are more sheep than people). We had a way too short photo stop at Jedburgh Abbey ruins - could be some nice photos there, but we apparently had to get to our pre-arranged lunch stop at a certain time, so we didn't have time to go up to the ruins (which was silly, because we got to our final stop at 4).

Our lunch was a half sandwich and passable pureed vegetable soup (L5.00) at Heddon-on-the-wall (at The Swan, which at least had good beer) so we could have a quick look at a low, small leftover rock fence that is supposed to be part of Hadrian's Wall. We just had time to eat and walk to the “wall” -- and then back on the bus.

Not sure what the hurry was to get to Harrogate by 4 - our dinner was scheduled for 6:00. We don't really have time scheduled for a Harrogate visit, tho- we're going elsewhere tomorrow. So I grabbed my suitcase myself and dashed back out to walk down to the main spot by the Royal Baths. I fell in love with Harrogate within 5 minutes - almost at first sight. Wonderful buildings, lovely flowered areas (the Queen Mother's rose garden across from the huge Baths complex is delightful), cute shops, etc. Our hotel is another old quaint one with some difficulties, very near a huge conference/exhibition center with a modern Holiday Inn (or Hilton). At least it's in walking distance to the main area, even for me; I'm better today, didn't need my cane or pills.

We had an included dinner with a choice of two restaurants - I based my choice on the menu (which meant toughing it out with the loud, constant talkers of our tour) - had a lovely quiet table companion, retired professor of Geography. The food was really good - two excellent deep-fried mushrooms, main course was fish pie (mostly salmon, a few shrimp in a cream sauce under a blanket of scallop potatoes), and apple crumble with ice cream, at Le Jardin, a ways off the main street by a beautiful garden park.

Finished off the evening in the lounge area of the hotel with a cheerful nice Australian couple. Quite a bit of the conversation was about the problems with this tour - one lady who's been on other Insight tours even came over to assure us that this is not typical of Insight Vacations tours - she's been on others that went much better as far as the logistics.

I apparently left some undies and socks behind somewhere, did an inventory before deciding that I did indeed need to do one more washing and came up short. A little hard to wash in this room (the Kimberley in Harrogate) - I have a tiny shower and toilet in the bathroom, with a small sink in the bedroom on the carpeted area. There are a lot of differences among the rooms, some are much better. I do have new windows, with a roof view, and I can open the top part for some fresh air. The bed has a sheet, instead of a duvet, which works better for me - a sheet and bedspread (there's a blanket in the cupboard).

So, another day with much more bus time than sightseeing, but tomorrow will not be much time on the bus. I had tried to figure out a tour that didn't waste a lot of time going up to Edinburgh and back, but wasn't successful in working that out. I did rather want to go to St. Andrews, but that turned out a bit disappointing as well, with the odd abbey stop thrown in, for some unknown reason - I would rather have spent time at the Old Course, or gone to the castle there. I guess when you read the tour brochures, you need to realize that there will be less to it than you might expect based on the descriptions (and I thought I had done that!).

I had originally planned to do this tour first, and then the one on the continent -- which probably would have been better, but the scheduling didn't work - this one is a bit disapppointing in comparison - not the sights/sites, but the logistics. And I had thought this one might be more relaxing which has not proven to be the case either - altho the one on the continent was even more physical. I'm learning a lot - and am actually enjoying the trip, in spite of my carping about things - just trying to let people know a bit about what to expect (or what not to expect). I've done so much traveling on my own, apparently motorcoach travel is not for me. Overall, I don't have much to complain about - except for my hip problem, so far nothing major has gone wrong, most of the time the weather has been great, and I've seen a lot of wonderful things. The odd inconveniences are just part of traveling, and the logistics failings may just be that my expectations were too high, or different, or something.



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