Sarah + Laura: Here's Why The North Of England Is Awesome!

Two years ago we set off on a Northern Road trip to the Isle of Skye taking in a number of other UK cities en route. You can check out the details here. This year we decided to do another northern road trip and take in a few new places.

First of all let me start by saying anyone who thinks you need to leave the UK for a holiday is wrong. This country is amazing. The only thing not guaranteed is the weather but if you pack a mac and some wellies there is no reason to stay home.

Our journey looked like this:

Destinations were:

Sheffield
Manchester
Holmfirth / peak district
Liverpool
Blackpool
Lake District

We will do a more detailed post on a couple of the places soon but I wanted to get the highlights into a blog while they were fresh in my mind.

We started off at Sheffield with a visit with friends and a trip to the Cricket Inn, where the food was AMAZING! Having the time to catch up and stuff our faces was a great way to start our trip. It was also a perfect starting point to head to Manchester the next morning.

Our platter for 2 that could have feed 8!

Manchester was added as a stop because it was Pride weekend. With the sun shining we arrived at the parade route with 20 minutes to spare. Manchester Pride is one of our favourites (see here)- the atmosphere, the people, the amount of music! It's such a fun experience. We love standing at the start of the parade as it means we can follow it into the centre as it leaves and stop off at Almost Famous. It always does a rainbow burger for pride and the chicken waffle fries with maple bacon are SO SO good!

After a hearty lunch we wandered the city until the sun disappeared and we headed north to Holmfirth. The small town is in West Yorkshire, and famous for being the location of Last Of The Summer Wine - the worlds longest running comedy series! It's a quaint town with a couple of pubs, river running through and a lot of steps! Built into the steep hills a walk home - or in our case to our Airbnb will always be uphill.

After a good nights sleep we spent Sunday hiking up and along Stanage Edge in the Peak District.

The walk itself provided amazing views of the peaks. It was a fairly easy climb up with gravel paths and the walk along the top was straightforward. We opted to walk the couple of miles to the roman road at the left hand end - thankfully we had sandwiches and drinks packed as the sunshine made it thirsty work. Highly recommend doing the walk though. There is free car parking at the bottom of the ridge. We even made time to fit in a trip to our cow Molly for some much needed refreshment.

We spent our Monday enjoying a cream tea in Holmfirth before hitting the road to Liverpool.

From vast countryside to one of the UK largest cities - Liverpool. You may remember we explored Liverpool earlier this year (the review can be found here). We enjoyed it so much we went - and this time with real Beatles fans. It meant we spent more time touring The Beatles homes and hangouts and even ended up watching a 60's music performance in a church on Penny Lane.

We were staying in the same Airbnb that we stayed at previously in New Brighton. Partly because we knew it was great and partly because the beach was the perfect place to let Bisbee run free. It was also a lovely place to reflect on the day we had spent strolling around the city - racking up some 10 miles! We had taken the ferry across the Mersey, checked out the Museum of Liverpool, walked up to Liverpool Cathedral, sat in a pub in Mathew Street and ate delicious Mexican at Lucha Libra - seriously so good!

Bisbee also got plenty of attention - the people of Liverpool are all so friendly and happy to talk. We ended up chatting to a couple outside the cathedral and it turned out their nephew had moved to Boise, Idaho (Laura's home state) - what are the chances!

There is also so much to see in Liverpool! And nearby - including Speke Hall - somewhere we had on the to-do list from our first trip!

Speke Hall was built in 1598 and is still in an amazing condition. Looked after by the National Trust they have retained the rooms allowing you to see exactly how the property was used. With people in every room ready to tell stories of years gone by it really is a place for history lovers. The condition of the house is astonishing as is the fact that they had figured out heating and had a kitchen Laura can only dream off.

With the sun shining we decided to add in a last minute addition to the trip and head to Blackpool en route to the Lake District. The last time we were in Blackpool was 2011 and it's fair to say it has only changed a bit - and that's a good thing. It is a traditional seaside resort with the tackiness to boot.

One new addition was the comedy carpet, a large area in front of Blackpool tower with all the greatest loved comedy phrases written out - plenty of Monty Python!

After a dinner of fish and chips in the evening sunshine it was on to the Lake District. Our Airbnb was in a tiny village (less than 10 houses) in between Kendal and Windermere. It was a great location to be able to explore easily and was our base for 4 days.

I'll definitely do a post on our Lake District tips but for now the highlights were: