NORTH HOTELS
THE NORTH – WHY GO?
From the rugged Yorkshire Dales to the Teesdale fells, you won’t be short of scenic hillsides to climb in the North. Stretching north-west from the spa town of Harrogate, the Dales are a microcosm of scenic Britain: wild and wonderful scenery, pretty villages, quaint pubs and rushing rivers. Windswept purple-heather moorlands, gentle meadows, stone villages decked with flowers – they’re all here.
Ribblesdale is the most dramatic of the dales, with waterfalls and towering crags, caves and quarries. Swaledale has its rugged gorges and jagged rocks. Wensleydale has its waterfalls and heaths, while gentler Wharfedale has woodlands and rolling fields, and the romantic ruins of Bolton Abbey.
Traditional stone villages include Grassington and Kettlewell, Austwick and East Witton. From the market town of Skipton you can watch boats chugging by on the Leeds-Liverpool canal and board the world-famous Settle-Carlisle railway – a scenic 72-mile journey that takes you over the 24 arches of the Ribblehead viaduct, through deep tunnels and along the lush Eden Valley.
From the pretty village of Romaldkirk in Teesdale, you can set off for river walks or fell climbing. Join the Teesdale Way, the coast-to-coast walk or the Pennine Way to take in some of the region’s finest scenery. If walking’s not your thing, grab a mountain bike.
Chester ticks all the boxes as a great getaway. You can walk around the most complete medieval city walls in Britain for an overview, then stroll down streets of high half-timbered Tudor buildings – the famous Chester Rows. There’s a fine cathedral, an ornate Victorian town clock, racecourse and zoo, and plenty of Roman remains.
Don’t miss the cathedral cities of Ripon and Durham, shiver on a ghost tour in lovely York, with its tearooms and medieval Shambles. Ready for something more metropolitan? Join the clubbing set in Manchester and Newcastle and feel the buzz in Liverpool, 2008’s European Capital of Culture.
England’s northern borders are marked by the 2,000-year-old Hadrian’s Wall while Blackpool, where seaside donkeys and funfairs still thrive, is great for rock and slot machines.
