The next part of our European vacation has us changing countries, changing currencies, and changing languages. Can we possibly keep up? We’ll try our best. 🙂
We fly from Milan to Manchester, England. Then hop on a train to Huddersfield (“hop” is a term used loosely as our hopping on and off train days are literally over). We will be met by friends who will take us to our next destination for a few days, The Foxglove Pub & Restaurant. As their website says, “A country pub near you oozing rural charm and rustic character.”
The daughter of our friends for many years manages The Foxglove and we’ve never had a chance to get this far north when visiting England so we are excited to finally get to see the pub with 48 rooms (a large property!) and beer garden. And of course, visit with our friends and have a good jaw wag!
While we are in the area, we are hoping to visit Liverpool, York, Leeds, and whatever other neighboring towns and hamlets have to offer for wandering tourists from the U.S. One afternoon, I hope to be making scones from a recipe in my cookbook for an event at the pub, so we’ll keep busy.
And perhaps an afternoon of just hanging out in the beer garden may be on the agenda for hubby too!
On to the next country!
While I know The Scots speak English, it will be testing our ability to understand some of the brogue spoken in Scotland, especially in the pubs after rounds two or three of whiskey! However, we are up for the challenge.
Our agenda in Scotland is free flowing due to the fact that Easter and holy holidays are celebrated during the time of our visit. So many things I wanted to do are not available or venues are closed. So a few of the must-dos (since hubby has not been Edinburgh) is the Edinburgh Castle, The Palace of Holyroodhouse, The Whiskey Museum (which I hope is within walking distance to our hotel since I don’t drink whiskey and I imagine I might emerge from that tasting a bit slogged), and the Royal Mile.
And of course, we will be visiting a few book stores as there is a street full of them in Edinburgh and one, in particular, carries my cookbook online so I was invited to stop in and check out the brick and mortar store.
There are some very interesting eateries we want to visit in and around town, and pubs of course. They have such amusing names like The Last Drop, The Dog House, and we won’t leave town without stopping in for a drink at Dirty Dick’s! I’m hoping to get hubby to taste haggis (which I didn’t think was that bad when I tasted it years ago) but that may not happen so not holding my breath. Maybe he’ll try it after a few drinks at Dirty Dick’s?
If we thought the Scotch were hard to understand, we’ve really got to pay attention to the Welch! When I wrote an email to the visitor information officer I received a response in Welch which doesn’t look like any language I’ve ever seen. Fortunately, there was a translation further down in the email!
We’ll be staying in Conwy (yes it’s spelled correctly) for a few days, calling the Castle Hotel home. While we are there, I will be interviewing the chef and getting a tour of the kitchen. I feel very privileged to have that opportunity as the Castle Hotel has quite a reputation for their cuisine!
Conwy also has a castle to visit (darn! I knew I should have brought my tiara!), along with many historical buildings and quirky shops. I know we will have some good walking adventures to help offset cooking and eating experiences. After all, we still have a few days left on this trip so the clothes have to fit on the way home!
We head back to Manchester for our final day before leaving the U.K. and heading back to Portland Oregon.
This is only a summary of our itinerary and there are more posts to follow with our experiences and adventures so keep checking in to see where we are next!
And if we don’t return home, please check our garden and water the snap peas, garlic, and onions! Thanks!
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