Lady’s Weekend in Harrogate Guide

Today I want to share my guide to a weekend in Harrogate, North Yorkshire with you. This historic spa town in England is one of the best places to visit in the UK, and a great spot for weekend trips from London and other parts of Britain.

Weekend in Harrogate

It’s been a while since I took a trip in the UK. I’m really good at getting out of the country, but I’m not so good at staying in it. That trend changed over the weekend, though, when a friend’s play in Leeds gave me an excuse to head north.

Having already been to Leeds, I wanted to stay somewhere outside the city. I had read about Harrogate, a historic Yorkshire spa town, and thought it would be a good alternative to its larger southern neighbor. It was.

How to Get from London to Harrogate

Friends and I drove up to Harrogate on Saturday morning, stopping in Leicester for lunch and arriving in town in the late afternoon.

Where to Stay in Harrogate

My boyfriend and I immediately fell in love with our lodging for our weekend in Harrogate. It was an apartment in The Lawrance’s Duchy House.

We were in a gorgeous suite with beautiful decor, and every detail from the silk throw pillows to the Philippe Starck bathrooms and the bottle of milk in the fridge was exactly what we were hoping for.

My boyfriend, who was so kind as to drive us from London to Harrogate, immediately collapsed into the goose-down-and-Egyptian-cotton-goodness that was our bed and settled in for a two-hour nap.

Obsessed with the apartment’s gorgeous details and the beautiful light coming through the windows, I spent a while taking pictures of the rooms before leaving The Lawrance and heading into Harrogate to explore.

Things to Do in a Weekend in Harrogate

Duchy House was only a few minutes’ walk from the main part of Harrogate, so I had ample time to wander around town while my boyfriend got his beauty rest.

I started my weekend in Harrogate at the Royal Baths (now somewhat confusingly a Chinese restaurant) and made my way through the main shopping areas in the Montpellier Quarter.

Soon I found myself in a stretch of green along Montpellier Hill with beautiful historic buildings on all sides.

From there I passed the famous Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms and made my way down the hill and past the Royal Pump Room Museum to a perfectly manicured park called Valley Gardens Harrogate.

I took a stroll along the tiny stream with its lush greenery and up to a fountain that was surrounded by beds of bright yellow and red flowers.

When I got back to The Lawrance, I dragged my sleeping boyfriend out of bed and we enjoyed Bettys coffee and tea and the apartment’s WiFi until it was time to drive to Leeds.

Once in Leeds we met up with our friends, who were staying there for the night.

We all headed to Leeds Playhouse to see Hay Fever, a Noel Coward play in which our friend starred as a member of a highly dysfunctional family that invites house guests over for the weekend with disastrous results. The play was great.

Afterwards we went to dinner at a nearby restaurant called Aagrah. It was nice to catch up with our actor friend, and the food was so good we couldn’t stop eating until we were well past the point of satiety.

After an aborted attempt to find an open pub for a post-dinner pint, we drove back up to Harrogate ready for a good night of sleep.

The next morning our weekend in Harrogate continued as our friends came up on the train from Leeds and the four of us went to Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms for a late breakfast.

The tea rooms are somewhat of an institution in Harrogate, and we enjoyed a big meal and a side of the signature dish, the Fat Rascal (no, it’s not a rodent, it’s a scone with lots of fruit and other goodness in it).

After breakfast we went back to Valley Gardens Harrogate and took another walk.

As if the half-hour stroll had actually burned off a single calorie of the bearnaise sauce from our eggs Benedict, we stopped for sticky toffee pudding cupcakes on the way back through town.

At last in food coma, the four of us walked back to The Lawrance and picked up our car.

Weekend in Harrogate: The Verdict

Waving good-bye to the beautiful apartment and the lovely historic buildings we saw during our weekend in Harrogate, we made or way down through England to London.

Despite the shortness of the trip, our weekend in Harrogate was a success.

It was great to see our friend’s play, and even yesterday my boyfriend was talking about how our apartment at The Lawrance was one of our best hotel stays ever.

Now that we’ve fallen in love with North Yorkshire, we might just have to stay in the UK again for a future trip.

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