Thanks and Report
Past Trips > Yorkshire
We would like to express our thanks to all the Staff at Tailored Travel and expecially to Vasiliki who did so much work turning our ideas and planning into such a successful holiday.
Margaret and Geoff
The Houses and Heritage of Yorkshire April 2025
At the beginning of April we joined Margaret and Geoff, under the guise of the brilliantly named MaggeoTravel, on a coach driven by our favourite driver, Dave, for a trip to Yorkshire. Over the years, as a group, we have become used to our weeks away being interesting, adventurous and a lot of fun. We weren’t going to be disappointed.
We arrived at the Pavilion Hotel in York and settled in, experiencing our first dinner of the week. All our evening meals were pre-ordered, which seemed a good idea to begin with, but as the week progressed there were a considerable number of errors and some, just some, strange dishes. The staff were very pleasant but they had problems with communication and a lack of training. Their understanding of special dietary requirements was embarrassing, there was a distinct lack of porterage, and the breakfasts were chaotic. Sadly, I believe the management refused to recognise the problems, but, despite that and Geoff’s rising blood pressure, we soldiered on overcoming all this and it was a generally pleasant, comfortable place to spend our week.
We were up and out by 9am the following day and Dave took us to Ripon, where we visited the ancient 7th century cathedral built by St Wilfred. Keeping up with tradition the afternoon was fully occupied with a visit to Newby Hall – a lovely Adam decorated house and gardens. Apart from a cool Easterly breeze the weather was lovely all week giving us every opportunity to explore the gardens of the houses we visited and experience some good fresh air in Whitby and at Flamborough Head.
A day was spent in York visiting the Jorvik Viking Centre and exploring the terrific city, with our guides for the day, who took us through the narrow streets and of course to the Minster, which was quite a highlight.
Our busy week continued the following day with a visit to the lovely seaside town of Whitby, the Captain Cook Museum and of course a lunch of fish and/or chips, prior to spending an exciting, but more relaxing afternoon, on a trip to Pickering on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway steam train.
The Army and Air Force were the topics of our visit on the Sunday, when we mustered for duty at 9am and were taken to the Eden Camp where our initiative was taxed attempting to visit the numbered huts in correct order. After lunch we went to the Yorkshire Air Museum at RAF Elvington, a WW2 Bomber Base, which contained an amazing number of vintage planes including an F6 Electric Lightening, a Halifax Bomber and Meteors. Both told remarkable memories of times past, especially poignant in this the 80th anniversary year of VE Day.
Of course, a visit to Yorkshire wouldn’t be complete without a visit to some gardens in Harrogate followed by a stroll around the beautiful ruins of the Cistercian Fountains Abbey. It is wonderful to see how much has been preserved and to feel the calm atmosphere which still pervades despite thousands of visitors.
We were coming to the end of our stay and on the last day experienced some more salt air, which greeted us when we arrived at Flamborough Head. It seems the whole of Yorkshire has wonderful expansive scenery of rolling hills and dales but then seeing the blue horizon and thousands of birds put a new perspective on the county. Not only were there razorbills and kittiwakes to spot there were hundreds of seals swimming in the clear water and basking on the beach at the bottom of the steep cliffs. We finished the day off at another lovely house - Burton Agnes Hall, memorable for many things but mostly for its extraordinary display of orchids. There were some for sale and of course one or two of our party couldn’t resist buying some. Dave carefully placed them in a special box under the coach and as far as we know they survived the journey home – which, unfortunately, wasn’t as straightforward as coming north, due to holdups on the motorway. As a result, it was a shame we missed the City of Caves in Nottingham, but by then the majority of us seemed to be quite happy to sit on the coach and let Dave take the strain!
It was another most enjoyable and successful holiday and thanks go to the 2 guides, Linda and Kirsty, we had for a few days, Dave the best driver ever and of course Margaret and Geoff – thank you.
Lois Mitchell.