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Welcome to Harrogate


The flag of the Yorkshire


Background Image - A view of the Yorkshire country side from a local rock outcrop. You can see RAF Menwith Hill on the skyline.

Ya Baby!!! We got to live in Harrogate, England!!!

   Harrogate, a place we called home from 2007 until 2010, is a pleasant spa town to the southeast of the Yorkshire Dales, famous for its tea shops, flower shows, Turkish baths, and antique shops. The town is also famous for its associations with the great English crime novelist Agatha Christie, who "disappeared" here for a few days in the 1930s. Just a few doors up Valley Drive from our 1st flat, was a row house where one of our favorite writers stayed for a short time, J. R. R. Tolkein. He stayed here for a short while recovering from wounds suffered in WW I.

Cheers,
Eddie and Sheena

Check out Betty's world famous tea house


Harrogate Council Tourism Site



The local Harrogate Newspaper
  Harrogate town center.   The shops along the Montpellier Hill.   Looking down the street from our 1st flat to the Royal Pump Room Museum.   The famous Betty's Cafe, a very popular tea house, at the top of Montpellier Hill.  
  The Stray - a 200+ acre park a couple blocks from our flat.   One of the many paths through the Stray on a beautiful fall day in early October.   Another view of the Stray on a beautiful clear fall day.   The trails through the Stray after a snow storm in February 2007.   The train tracks running through the Stray.
  The entrance to the Valley Gardens, first laid out 1880-1900.   Fall flowers in the Valley Gardens. Along with the Pinewoods, the gardens cover 17 acres.   More fall flowers in the gardens.   Incredible vines in the Valley Gardens.   Just across the street from our flat, in the Valley Gardens is the Magnesia Tea Room.

Apartment Living....

   OK, We hadn't lived in an apartment in a while and were defiantly used to living in a small American style house, so this was a new start! For the first month, we were stuffed in a small one bedroom short-stay apartment called the Ashness Apartments. For basically a hotel room while we were looking for more permanent accommodations, it was a very nice place.

    Once we moved to more permanent accommodations, life in Harrogate got underway!
  This is our 2nd Flat in Harrogate with Sheena saying "Hello" from our living room window   Our flat consisted of the entire 1st floor (2nd floor for us Americans)!   Eddie and Sheena taking a break from unpacking in the new living room   Eddie whippin up some grub in the new kitchen   And they said the car wouldn't fit!
  Forget the garage, it was the driveway that was narrow!     Once out of the Ashness, we moved in to our 1st flat on Valley Drive. Our flat was the 2nd bay window from the right, overlooking the Valley Gardens park across the street. Absolutely splendid!   The front room and kitchen of our 1st flat.....before the furniture arrived!  
  In February 2007 and then again in September 2007, this was our temporary home. The Ashness Apartments.   The Ashness apartments were quite nice and spacious. When Eddie was here alone in February, the living room was life central. With a gas fireplace, TV and internet, who needs a bedroom.   Considering most people just got the standard hotel room where going out to dinner was required, we had a kitchen! With a stove/oven, refrig/freezer and cabinets, we were set!   Just to be clear, we're not talking luxury. Note the standard Starbucks coffe mug and pan of 6 brownies.   Ahhh, the infamous red-room. When the curtains were pulled and the sun hit the windows....it WAS a red room! To bad we shared a wall with the chronic "snore-boy (girl?)". His snoring shook the gates of hell .... and we didn't sleep!

Hiking in Harrogate

   It was increadilbe, but yes...we could step out our front door which was just a few blocks from the center of town and go for a walk in the country. Having come from the moderate sized city of Denver, where all you could do is walk into suberbia hell if you walked away from the city center, this was a dream come true.
1st Hike, February 2007 - For Eddie's first weekend in Harrogate, he decided to explore the city. Sunday morning was spent wandering around the 200+ acre Stray, the main town center, wandering from shop to shop in the drizzle and picking up a shopping bag of goodies. This was the tail end of the 3 days of snow, the worst snowstorm in over 10 years in Harrogate. Just for the record, it was a couple inches. This was rather difficult to explain to Sheena while she was still buried under a couple feet of snow in Denver....   Click on this link for the full story...  
  The fields around Harrogate.     The Harrogate Inn alays made for a nice stop on the walks in the area.    
      My 1st introduction to a "Snicket".    

Almscliff Crag

   Just on the edge of Harrogate, is the Great Almscliff Crag, one of the largest and most massive gritstone tors (rock outcropping) in the Pennines. It is also one of the most popular climbing and bouldering areas in near Harrogate.
Sign at the entrance to the Almscliff Crag.   Rocks!!!   You can get a really good idea of the cliffs and surrounding walking area from this picture.   Eddie trying to find routes on the cliff face. It was a little wet and slippery that day.   Eddie on one of the outcroppings. You can see farmer fields and the stonewalls separating them in the distance.
 Eddie enjoying some sun.   Eddie in the distance, checking out the routes from afar with book in hand.   Eddie on a mission. He's found some peeps to talk rock shop.   1959 Austrian graffiti etched in the rocks.   More graffiti, this time the folks from California.
  Lovely view of the surrounding area.   The ever rare rays of sun!   Rock outcroppings in the neighboring farmers field. You can really see how the stone walls are laid out...stone by stone.   Typical Yorkshire walking conditions. Yep...that's a whole lotta mud!