A Weekend in Yorkshire (2025)

This summer, my boyfriend and I spent a long weekend up North. I found myself with a non-refundable hotel booking in the Midlands, and whilst I wasn't too keen on the Midlands, I do love the North, so decided to make the most of the situation and use the hotel as a midway point between London and the North.

The Midlands

On Thursday evening, after work and dinner, my boyfriend and I drove a couple of hours to the Midlands, where we checked into the hotel and spent the night watching our TV show and enjoying a homemade banoffee pie that I’d made the previous evening. The drive was only a couple of hours and meant that we could avoid the Friday evening rush out of London, whilst also breaking up our drive to the North. 

York

We spent the Friday morning working remotely from the hotel, having lunch at the hotel, before driving an hour north and stopping at a café en route to work from in the afternoon. Once work was over, we drove the remainder of the journey to Poppleton, which is just outside of York and was the location of our airbnb. Initially, we’d cut York out of our itinerary due to timings, but we arrived in Poppleton earlier than anticipated and decided to spend the Friday evening in York as my boyfriend had never been. 

York is a very small, walkable city, so we started at Clifford’s Tower and walked our way up to the York Minster. The main attraction I wanted to show my boyfriend was the Shambles, the alleged inspiration for Diagon Alley in Harry Potter. Although all of the stores had closed by the evening, we had a wonderful time exploring, especially as it was still daylight, and had booked dinner in a North African restaurant called Los Moros.

I don’t often have North African cuisine, but whilst travelling through Morocco, Tunisia, and Egypt, I enjoyed the food, so I was very excited. This meal was no exception; we enjoyed the roasted cauliflower, fried chicken, merguez sausages, prawns, beef cheeks and red wine. Everything was delicious and the service was very good too - I’d definitely recommend it if you’re in York! 

After finishing our dinner and exploring the city a bit more, we walked to the train station and took the train just one stop to Poppleton, where we got ready for bed, ready for an early rise the following morning. 

The Yorkshire Dales

The Airbnb was very cute and comfy, so we woke up at 6am feeling refreshed and enjoyed some coffees and pain au chocolates, before driving over to the Yorkshire Dales, which took just over an hour. 

We had planned to visit the Aysgarth Falls, a series of waterfalls in the Dales which you can see at different points as you walk along a trail. It was pretty cloudy in the morning, which made the walk very comfortable, and we started by walking to the upper falls, and then following it down to the middle and lower falls. They were absolutely gorgeous and despite it being a Saturday morning, we had the path to ourselves, which was dreamy. Towards the end of our walk, as we took in the scenic views with fruit in hand, the sun started to make a full appearance. It was very peaceful and I enjoyed it greatly. 

We then did a slight detour, deciding to drive through the Dales rather than around them to get to Knaresborough. I love the Dales a lot and have visited almost every year since 2020, so I wanted to show him more of them. Unfortunately, the sat nav got confused and we ended up driving an additional hour in the wrong direction and arrived in Knaresborough later than expected.

Knaresborough

Knaresborough is perhaps my favourite town to visit up North as it’s not too crowded but very pretty and almost magical. I’ve been many a time, but I’d never rented a boat and rowed under the iconic bridge, so that was the plan this morning. First though, food. It was around 10:30am and although we’d already eaten our pain aus and bananas, they weren’t really touching the sides anymore. We also had booked an afternoon tea for 3pm (spoiler!) and didn’t want to eat too close to that, so we decided a sausage bap would hit the spot. Unfortunately, the café by the boat rentals was rammed so they recommended that we hire the boat first and eat afterwards.

We got on a cute, little row boat, and my boyfriend did the manual labour whilst I steered. It was very fun going down the river, especially as I’d never been as far down as we rowed to, so I got to explore some new parts of Knaresborough. That said, we did get beached at one point as the river became very shallow and the punters came into view, but my boyfriend sorted us out and we were back on our way! 

After about 40 minutes of rowing, we’d explored as much as we could, so returned the boat early and headed back to the café for a bap. Annoyingly, it was now even busier than earlier and as we walked between the various cafés, many of them had now stopped serving breakfast! Alas, we decided to make the best of the situation and headed into the town centre, where we spotted a deli named Appleton and bought some sausage rolls instead. These absolutely hit the spot, and the staff were absolutely lovely, even handing us an extra paper bag for my scrapbook! 

We then picked the car back up and headed over to the nearby Harrogate, which I’d never visited before. 

Harrogate

I never had much interest in visiting Harrogate, however given that we wanted to have an afternoon tea and the original Betty’s tea room is in Harrogate, we decided to book it here. I’d been to the Betty’s in York and enjoyed it, although it was a different atmosphere to London’s afternoon teas (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing!), so I was intrigued to try out the Betty’s in Harrogate. 

We parked outside the city centre and the first thing I noticed as we walked into the centre were the grand, gorgeous houses lining the roads; we seemed to be in an affluent area and it was immediately apparent how much larger Harrogate was compared to York or Knaresborough. As we were walking around, we were both slightly tired as we’d been non-stop until now and had about an hour to kill before the tea. We popped into a couple of charity shops and high street shops, buying a puzzle from a games shop, and once we had browsed to our heart’s content, we decided to head to Betty’s, even though we were about 45 minutes early. 

We were told that we could have the table 15 minutes early, and in the meantime we perused the shop (where I bought a card) and then headed outside to chill in the nearby park in the sun until 14:45. Eventually we headed back to Betty’s and were escorted upstairs to a gorgeous, spacious room with a pianist. We were shown our seats and the waiter walked us through the menu and took our tea orders. I got the traditional afternoon tea blend, whilst my boyfriend (who doesn’t like tea) ordered a coffee instead.

This was my boyfriend’s first ever afternoon tea and it did not disappoint! We started with a small appetiser, comprising a Wensleydale and spinach tart, alongside a pea and shallot éclair, which was followed by an array of sandwiches, two mini scones, and three sweet treats at the end. The Wensleydale and spinach tart was one of the best parts of the menu, to the extent that my boyfriend specifically complemented it and was offered another, and the sandwiches were delicious. There was a selection, including egg mayonnaise in a milk bun, salmon, capers and horseradish, and salami and mozzarella with basil and tomato. All of them were delectable, and as expected with an afternoon tea, unlimited. 

We then moved on to the scones, which are often my favourite part of an afternoon tea. Often, two large scones is too filling and by the time you then get to the sweet treats you’re feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. However, Betty’s Harrogate have solved this issue by instead providing two mini scones, one plain and the other lemon and poppy seed, which was top tier. The strawberry jam and clotted cream were delicious too and in perfect quantities.

Finally came the sweet treats, which I often deem too rich and filling for the end of the meal and normally would much rather just one small treat instead. Nonetheless, we were offered a salted caramel chocolate mousse, which was very rich but tasty, a passionfruit and raspberry slice, which felt like an explosion in my mouth, and two strawberry and cream macaroons, which were a favourite of mine. 

Throughout our afternoon tea, the pianist played ‘Happy Birthday’ on five separate occasions, and each time a small cake was brought out, which I found cute. The pianist was incredible, as was the service, and I was never left waiting or with cold tea. Even the loos were very well-thought-through and on paying, we each were given a small box with two salted caramel chocolates, which was a nice touch. In fact, this was my boyfriend’s favourite part of the entire trip!

After a delightful experience in Betty’s, we picked up some snacks for dinner and drove back to the midlands, where we’d be spending our final night. The days had flown by, and we were very excited to spend the night watching our show with some grapes, popcorn and crisps. 

Dunstable Downs

On the Sunday morning, we awoke early and checked out of the hotel, as we still had a busy day ahead of us. We drove towards London, aiming to beat the majority of the traffic, and stopped at a service station to pick up some breakfast and snacks. Breakfast comprised a sausage bap (to make up for its absence the previous day) and coffee, eaten al fresco, and then we headed to Dunstable Downs, a National Trust site between the Midlands and London. 

We went for a 7km walk around the fields, which was very relaxing and enjoyable, although we did get quite scratched up by the twigs and nettles. At the end, we sat on a bench enjoying the view with a flapjack in hand and a chocolate leftover from Betty’s, which was wonderful; there were many families playing with kites and gliders flying in the air for our entertainment. 

We then drove back to London, where we continued with the rest of the weekend. One thing that I found very helpful when driving those distances was breaking the driving up into various small chunks, so it never felt tiresome or overwhelming. I always love visiting the North, especially Knaresborough and the Dales, and hope to create many more memories there in the years to come.