Three days in Clitheroe

30.04.2016

"Made it to Clitheroe. Sun shining but bitter cold wind. Taxi to our lovely apartment in the eaves of a grand old home. Walked half a mile ( in the wrong direction...damn you google maps ) to get groceries. A friendly local sheep told us and a friendly local person gave us a lift to the shop. Woke up to what sounded like the mating call of several species of birds, but worth the early rise to see the sun lighting up the hills. Leone is amazed at how beautiful the countryside around Clitheroe is, but not too happy about the flights of stairs we have to climb to get to our rooftop retreat...." Alan

" This is the Victorian mansion (1892) we are staying in, right at the top. It is set in 20 acres of land surrounded by trees with lots of birds. Beautiful surroundings, lots of holiday homes and permanent people but none of them too close to each other." Leone

"In beautiful Clitheroe where Alan was born. Jean and Steve (Alan´s family), took us for a long tiki tour yesterday around the amazing villages, they really are amazing!!!!!! Stone fences, little streams running through, sheep with black faces. We stopped in a 400 year old pub for a shandy then got taken back to their place for a lovely meal. Lovely kind people, a great day at the end of our trip, quite different from trains, trams, buses, taxis, crowds ... just great and laidback." Leone

On one of the days we took a bus to Skipton and enjoyed looking around the stalls on the Markets. We followed this with a visit to Skipton Castle which is really impressive and is still complete after 900 years. It was a Royalist stronghold and withstood a 3 year siege by the armies of Oliver Cromwell in the 1640's. On the grounds is also the shell of a 12th century chapel complete with christening font. On the way back to the bus station we enjoyed a huge bacon and egg filled bun and a big mug of Yorkshire tea at a stall on the markets, we also popped on down to the town canals to check out a longboat festival that was going off with live music and a fairground. After a few minutes of this we realised that the day was getting colder and was looking like rain, so we headed back to the bus and our homebase in Clitheroe.

went looking for a shop but found only sheep