We were fortunate to have an opportunity to visit the UK this past month and we decided to take advantage of it. Our last few visits over the years have taken us to Devon, Cornwall, Wales and the Cotswolds. This time we decided to head north to visit the moors and dales of beautiful Yorkshire. With fall in full swing, we were excited for the opportunity to see more fall colors, fully aware that weather this time of year can be less then cooperative. As you will see, we were right on both accounts. It was a wonderful trip and such a pleasure to travel there again.
Once again, our first major stop was to be the Salisbury area for Craig to attend some work meetings. This trip, however, we decided to schedule a short prelude visit to the Warner Brothers Studios and see the Harry Potter film sets. Then we spent a couple days in our old stomping grounds near Oxford before heading on to Salisbury.
As our flight landed early in the morning, we spent a day exploring and acclimating to the time change around the London suburbs before settling in for our visit to Harry Potter Studios. We stopped in the town of Henley-on-Thames. We knew of this town from a TV show we watched called “Midsomer Murders”. They filmed quite a few episodes here and we thought it might be a nice place to walk and find a pub lunch and we were right.
Henley-on-Thames is known as one of the birth places of Rowing, or Crew. It is also the location of the annual Henley Royal Regatta which was first established in 1839. The sun was out and the sky clear and blue. We walked along the river to stretch our legs after the long flights and found a nice pub, the Angel on the Bridge, right on the river. They had some good soup and of course I had a pint of “proper” beer.
All along the river were narrow boats, house boats used for canal travel, tied up along the banks. It was the middle of the week, but there were still plenty of folks out walking and enjoying the day.
We also made a stop in Berkhampstead looking for the ruins of an old castle. The parking was tough as there was a lot of construction, so we opted to skip the castle ruins and walk along the canal path instead. It was a great stretch of path with a couple of locks to watch and houses and cottages with some lovely flowers and gardens.
In all it was a great way to get acclimated. Craig got back in the swing of driving on the left side of the road and familiarized ourselves with all the rules of the road. We found a great pub for soup and a pint and enjoyed much needed walks to stretch our legs. Next up, a day with Harry.