Dales/Lake District - 7th June 2012

This trip was intended to visit both the Yorkshire Dales and The Lake District, and to climb at least one of the Yorkshire 3-peaks before moving on to the lakes.
However, the weather was bad the first few days and we moved on to the lakes with no walks (but some shopping!) done during our stay in North Yorkshire.

We travelled on Thurs 7th June and stayed in Harrogate at the Kimberley hotel located about 5-10 minutes walk from the town centre. This was booked via a KGB deal at £89 for 2 nights including full breakfast and a bottle of wine on arrival. This was a fantastic deal and included an executive room which was much larger and better equipped than the standard or budget rooms at this hotel. (We have stayed here twice before).

We dined at the hotel both nights, in the bistro, at £23 a head for 3 course dinner.
This was excellent value as the food was well prepared and presented at a high restaurant standard. The beef wellington was absolutely delicious and Susan had this on both nights as it was so good!
The only negative points are that the car park is not huge and there MAY be problems parking there if arriving late, and that if you do find a parking spot the hotel charges £6 per night for it. The service in the Bistro was very slow on the second evening, but the excellent food did outweigh this.

We visited Skipton, Ripon & Richmond whilst in the area but didn't spend as much time sight-seeing as we would have liked, mainly due to the wet weather.
There is a well-stocked whisky shop at Skipton if you are that way inclined....

                                                Above - Ripon Cathedral

We had thought we might get a walk in on the Saturday but upon waking the day was wet once again, and so we travelled straight to the Lakes after breakfast and checked into our hotel in Ravenglass early afternoon.

Ravenglass is a VERY small village consisting mainly of just one street adjacent the estuary.
We stayed for two nights at the Pennington Hotel on another KGB deal. This was £79 for the two nights including an excellent breakfast. We dined both nights at the hotel in their restaurant, which was a fixed price of £24 per head for three courses. The menu was quite limited, but did change in part each evennig, and the quality and presentation were excellent and good value for money. The hotel also had a comfortable bar and a bar menu which was more varied.

Having checked in we decided to go for a short walk in the area, details on next post.