📍Birmingham & Knaresborough, England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 🇬🇧

While we each traveled solo, J fell in love with a small town in England called Knaresborough. We had met here for one night before London, but I got there late and left early so we didn’t get to explore. When he stayed, he met the most amazing hosts who happened to be out of town when we came back, so we rented their house for a week. Yes, we were in a home—like more than one room and actual space for the first time in a while. We used the week to catch up on sleep, do “everyday” things like visit a grocery store and consider cooking, and just hang out and watch some TV.

Day 1: Knaresborough was a bit far from Cardiff, so to split up the train ride we made a quick stop in Birmingham. We got in around dinner time and went to a really good restaurant called 1,000 Trades. The restaurant was unlike any other place I had been. The place was in an old jewelry shop and they hire guest chefs so the menu is consistently changing. When we went the guest chef was Dan Lee and we were big fans.

Day 2: We took another train and arrived in a small town called Harrogate. We stopped at a Greek restaurant called Taverna and had some food before we met up with some friends J had made in the area during his solo travel.

They invited him to an event at a Turkish hammam. This hammam looked like some of the ones we had seen in Turkey. It was a private event so we could freely roam around from the pool, to the steam rooms, to the saunas. We ended up leaving pretty late and, naturally, we were hungry. We looked up restaurants in the area and everywhere was closed except Wetherspoons—the chain where we had the subpar breakfast. J ordered food and it was fine (I’d say 5/10). I ordered food and it was AWFUL (-10/10). The chicken wings had orange substance oozing out of them and that was enough to be done with Wetherspoons for the rest of my life and done with chicken wings until further notice.

Day 3: We had breakfast at Baltzersen’s, which was a step up from Wetherspoons, but if I’m being honest, still not it. Good thing the Greek restaurant was good or this city would have to be on my list of “bad food, don’t visit.”

It was finally time for our home away from home for the week. We took a really short train ride and finally arrived in Knaresborough. The home we stayed in was walking distance to everything—the train station, town, restaurants, and the one bar in town. We walked from the train, put our stuff down, and sat down…on a couch…in a living room. Unreal.

Eventually, we needed food (more time went by than this blog shows, but we really did just sit for a while) and I was on a hunt for crumpets. Our English friend had told us about them and I was on a mission to try them before I left England.

Mission complete. Excuse the tired eyes and crazy hair and focus on what we are here for: the crumpets. They were delicious and I am almost angry they have not become a thing in the states. We got the tea, now give us the carbs.

Day 4: We spent the next day relaxing, catching up on shows, and planning the next part of our trip. We did not leave the house until dinner time, where we walked to a bar/restaurant called So! Bar and Eats. I guess I was missing the States because I saw a Philly cheesesteak on the menu and it was a done deal for me. Turns out, England does a pretty good Philly cheesesteak.

Day 5: After a lazy day, we needed some activity. J’s friends had taught him squash and it was time I learned too. I sucked at the beginning. The ball is so small and hardly bounces, I couldn’t get the serve down, it truly wasn’t going great. By the end, things had turned around and I even beat one of the guys that plays often. 🧏‍♀️ Guess I’m practically a professional now. (J beat me and everyone else we played so I was quickly humbled.)

We had worked up an appetite and decided to reward ourselves with our favorite treat—if you guessed sushi, you are correct.

During J’s solo time, the guys he had become friends with invited him to trivia night and he had blast. It worked out that we were there for another trivia night which was fun, except I could not be any less helpful on a trivia team. More of a distraction, or a liability, if you will, but fun nonetheless. Unfortunately, our team didn’t win, but I never win trivia so this was not a new feeling to me.

We may not have won, but someone had a very good night. The bar does a raffle and puts the money in a locked box. They also have a bag of keys and only one key opens the money box. If you win the raffle, you get to pick a key out of the bag and if you pick the one key that opens the box, you win the money. Well, the stars aligned for the guy in picture 3 below and he won the money! They said this happens a few times a year, so big big day overall.

After trivia we all hung out for a bit over at one of J’s friend’s house.

Day 6: We got home pretty late, so we had a late start to our day. We eventually made it to Honey Bee’s at Hannah’s to get some breakfast.

We chilled at “home” some more before ordering some fish ‘n’ chips…stop judging us our breakfast was light-ish.

We ended the night at the bar to hang out with everyone and for a second trivia night. Update: I was just as bad at trivia night 2 as I was night 1.

Day 7: The day things took a turn. J had started to feel a bit sick again. We had gotten breakfast and when we were there I saw a cheesecake that looked pretty good (it was a biscoff cheesecake). Long story short, user error and I forgot to put said cheesecake in the fridge and decided to still eat it. Shouldn’t have. Food poising ensued for the next 24 hours. Overall, we had a rough 24-48 hours. We had planned the rest of our trip and we were flying from London, so mustered up the strength to pack up our things and head back to London for the airport.

We were off to Morocco…or so we thought…