So Many Dishes

I haven’t taken many photos this week, other than food pictures for blog posts and the one I shared on Wednesday. My Facebook and One Drive photo memories, however, have been flooded with pictures I took on our trips to England in 2016 and 2017. The first year, we took a tour of the Derbyshire Dales, staying in a country house within the Peak District National Park, followed by two days in York on our own. The following year, we were in Exmoor National Park in Somerset for a weeklong tour, then spent two days in London and three nights with friends in Cambridgeshire. So I decided to share just a few of my favorite shots from those trips.

While in the Peak District, we visited the Arkwright mills in Cromford, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, considered a birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. It was a gray day, and it poured as we arrived at the visitors center. The rain cleared as we left the mill, and we had some free time. Ken and I chose to walk with our guide and another couple along the Cromford Canal. As we continued to walk, this beautifully decorated barge passed us. It was completely unexpected, and this picture evokes wonderful memories of that day.

Both of our tours in England were with a company called HF Holidays, which specializes in walking tours. Ken found them online, and we booked the walking tour we did in the Italian Piedmont through them. Our English tours were what they call “discovery tours:” mostly sightseeing on a bus, but with shorter walks and plenty of free time at the sites we visited. There was also a free day in each tour, and there are directions for self-guided walks, so on our free day in Derbyshire, Kent and I decided to walk to the famous Dovedale Stepping Stones. The stones create a path across the Dove River and were only about a mile from the country house. The route took us through fields and through several gates. The one pictured above was both the smallest and most picturesque. As I recall, we crossed a stile, too. Someday I will tell the story of that walk, because it’s definitely a story in its own right.

Finally, from the 2017 trip to Exmoor, a scene from the Valley of the Rocks. The steep cliff and jagged rocks made for breathtaking scenery. Walking the cliff side path was a bit unnerving, and since Ken isn’t great with heights and started feeling light headed, we turned back and found a bench that overlooked the Bristol Channel. Except for the occasional bleat of one of the feral goats that roam the area, it was quiet and peaceful.

Reliving our travels through pictures is fun, although I’d love to go back to both places.