My Yorkshire Holiday - Part VI

The Friday of my week in Yorkshire is quickly told - you'll understand why in a minute.

One of the leaflets my sister-in-law had collected for me was about Knaresborough, a small town not too far away from Ripon. I'd been through there many times on the train, but never stopped to have a look around, so on the Friday morning, my niece and I checked bus timetables and worked out that we'd have two hours to explore the place between our arrival and the next-to-last bus going back.

Two hours does not sound much, but Knaresborough is small and compact enough for that. For me, the ride on the bus alone was worth it - the scenery between Ripon and Harrogate is just so beautiful, and my niece (who rode that way to go to school for years) pointed out her favourite houses to me.

We arrived at the central bus stop in Knaresborough just after 1.00 pm. Our first stop was the oldest chemist shop in England, where I bought a little gift for RJ (it was his birthday the week after my return to Germany). Then, we were ready for a bite to eat and thought to just grab a quick sandwich before further exploring the town.

Well, yes, that was the idea. We found a café, ordered and paid our sandwiches inside, and then sat at a table in the courtyard. And sat... and sat... and sat.
I should have gone in earlier, but I waited half an hour before we both agreed making a sandwich could never take that long (and the café was less than half full), so I finally went inside and asked very politely if we could please have our sandwiches now.
The girl behind the counter made huge, astonished eyes - had we not been served yet? No, we had not... She apologized profusely, claiming a misunderstanding between her (who had taken the order and the money) and the other girl (who was supposed to be making the sarnies). She promised to get our food to us as quickly as possible. I went back to our table, and 10 minutes later, we had our food.
Well, by the time we left the café, we had about 35 minutes left for all of Knaresborough before our bus would take us back to Littlethorpe!

Yes, the town is small and compact, but not THAT small and compact, and 35 minutes is of course nowhere near enough.

We only managed to walk to the grounds of the ruined castle, a pretty park with a great view. On the way there and back to the bus stop, we looked at shop windows and the old buildings surrounding us. Several walls had painted doors and windows on them (trompe l'oeil), and my leaflet told me that many Georgian buildings had bricked-in windows to avoid window tax; a group called "Renaissance Knaresborough" sponsored them being reinstated in the shape of these painted panels.
For lack of time plus the many people walking around, I did not take pictures of any of the beautifully painted windows, but you can see some examples here.

We caught our bus back home, and while I did regret not having had more time in Knaresborough, it will be a good reason to go back next year.