We had about a half day left in Keswick before we had to take the train to Leeds. I wanted to visit the Yorkshire Dales and the easiest way to do that was to go to Leeds, rent a car for the day and drive up to the Dales. We had our final breakfast at the bed and breakfast, visited Derwentwater one last time, and then took the bus back to Penrith Rail Station to take the train to Leeds.
TRAIN:
Penrith (North Lakes) to Leeds
(2 transfers at Carlisle and Manchester Piccadilly)
Travel Time: 4 h
Total: £29
We arrived in Leeds in the early evening – I was planning on us taking the later train in and get in late at night to have more time to explore in Keswick but my friends convinced me that it was better to get to Leeds sooner and eat and rest there. Leeds is a university city in West Yorkshire. Our Airbnb was a little out of the way from the train station but it was closer to where we were going to pick up our car rental so that was one of the main reasons we picked that location. We stayed in a private room with two beds and we had our own entrance so we were able to move around freely. Our Airbnb host was also super kind – she firmly told us that if we were out late at night without a safe way of getting back to the Airbnb, that we were to call her and she would pick us up and make sure that we were safe.
AIRBNB:
1 Night in Leeds
Address:
24 Hamilton Place
Leeds, England LS7 4BW
Total: $142 (for 3 people)
Total per person: $47.33
We decided to just walk around the city center, grab some dinner, and partake in the nightlife of Leeds. We managed to finally make it to a Nando’s, which is for some reason such a big deal in the UK (literally everyone I know in England raves about late night snacking at Nando’s). Our first attempt in London pretty much failed as we arrived when they were closing up for the night so we were happy to be early enough to order some food. Nando’s is known for the peri-peri chicken and their variety of hot sauces. I just ordered a small set of wings and fries and boy, was that chicken spicy!
England is also known for drinking a lot of gin (formerly used as bitter medicinal drink in the tropical outposts of India) so there are tons of gin bars all around the country. We ended up going into a bar to try some of the gin called The Wrens. They had a great happy hour and had so many different flavors of gin that we were able to try! Gin is still not really my drink of choice but it wasn’t nearly as bad as I remembered. Afterwards, we headed back to our Airbnb so we could get up early to pick up the car for our Yorkshire Dales outing.
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