lori_p

Hi

My husband and I just booked a trip to Leeds for the film festival in November and I am looking for help in putting together an itinerary. We are only doing one day of movies (Thursday Nov 9) and are staying, I believe right in town (at the Quebecs Hotel). At the moment we are not planning on renting a car but this could change.

Any suggestions for restaurants, must see sights (museums/castles/historically significant places), venues for live music, best spot to ‘experience’ high tea (sorry, I’m American, have to do it), pretty wide open to all suggestions. We have 2 completely free days in Leeds.

Thanks for your thoughts! Lori

alanRow

Royal Armouries, Thackray Medical Museum, Harewood Hall - or better still get the train to York, it's under 30 minutes away

PalenqueBob

Royal Armouries Museum is a major UK museum and the walk along the canal with restored industrial heritage sites is what drew me to Leeds.

lori_p

Thanks to you both. Any thoughts on where to eat?

L

flanneruk

Sorry to tweak your tail, but if you want High Tea in Leeds, you HAVE to go out of town to Guiseley and visit the original Harry Ramsden's.

Where a plate of excellent lard-fried, fish and chips, with its ritual accompaniment of tea, bread and butter, served in remarkable surroundings by waitresses in trafitional dress, is pretty close to the archetype of the perfect High Tea.

And that may be what you want: if you've researched this properly, you'll know what High Tea is, and that it has a long tradition in England's (now postindustrial) heartland.

If you've not done your research properly and you're looking for afternoon tea, Leeds isn't really the place to start. Mimsy cucumber sandwiches for the price of a plane ticket to Athens aren't quite what made Yorkshire an economic powerhouse.

But of course, all civilisations decay. Leeds increasingly is being taken over by hairdressers and merchant banker wannabees, and their Mecca is the Leeds branch of Harvey Nichols. Whose fourth floor cafe does indeed offer - o tempora, o mores - afternoon tea.

And that loud roar you can hear is the sound of Harry R leading generations of miserly fellow-Tykes as they collectively turn in their graves.

Morgana

Hi
I work in Leeds City Centre, and I am sure you will enjoy your stay. Quebecs Hotel is a very good choice.
As already mentioned, Harewood House is just outside Leeds and I would normally suggest a visit, but unfortunately it shuts at the end of October.
Leeds is fabulous for shopping - Harvey Nicks as already mentioned, although their restaurant wouldn't be my top choice of where to eat. Also the Victoria Quarter with upmarket shopping in a Victorian (now there's a surprise!) arcade.
www.vqleeds.com
The Corn Exchange has lots of trendy small shops.
www.cornx.net
Leeds is a boom town right now and has some extremely good restaurants. I eat out in the city centre a lot, and at the upper end of the market Anthony's is superb. But this is a place for a special occasion.
www.anthonysrestaurant.co.uk
After extensive research, other favourites are -
1) Brasserie 44
Beautiful building, great food.
www.brasserie44.com
2) Bibis - Italian food in an Art deco setting.
www.bibisrestaurant.com
3) Red Chilli (superb Chinese food situated behind the Town Hall)
4) Sous le nez en ville - mainly French food in a cellar restaurant in Quebec Street.
Sorry, the last 2 places don't have their own websites, but a google would throw up lots of information.
This website - www.itchyleeds.co.uk
is useful for Leeds in general.
Leeds Art Gallery is worth a visit and often has special exhibitions on.
If you feel Leeds doesn't have enough to keep you ocupied you could take the 36 bus to Harrogate (takes about 40 minutes). Or the train to York. Renting a car would obviously open up the area a lot more, but many places do shut at the end of October, re-opening at Easter. Fountains Abbey is an exception, a World Heritage site that you would need a car to travel to from Leeds.
www.fountainsabbey.org.uk
Sorry, never been to afternoon tea in Leeds, but make sure you try some of the local Yorkshire tea, sometimes called 'Builder's tea'!
Leeds isn't a 'pretty' place - it's Northern and gritty and some of the Victorian buildings are completely over the top - I'm thinking of the pink marble pillars in the Town Hall here - but it's lively and buzzy and I love working in the centre of it (although glad I live somehwere quiet a good distance away!).
Give me a yell if you have any questions.
M

MissPrism

Yorkshire is or was the home of high tea and if you can find somewhere that does it, you should experience it.
I remember that tea in my grandmother's house was a really substantial meal.
There'd be cold meats like hazlet, savoury ducks (faggots), ham and egg pie, pork pies and wonderful cakes and buns including curd tarts and parkin.

flanneruk

In fairness, poncey southern "afternoon tea" isn't totally unYorkshire. The Betty's minichain (www.bettys.co.uk) offers a sensibly practical Yorkshire twist on the effete ritual some tourists love to pay fortunes to watch other tourists paying fortunes for. You still have to go out of Leeds centre to places Leeds businessfolk moved to once they got a few airs and graces, though.

And they serve Taylor's Yorkshire tea, properly brewed.

As Morgana says, Leeds city centre is probably our best-preserved chunk of High Victoriana (or actually, I think, Edwardiana). Not just because Hitler wasn't as determined to destroy it as he was with the great ports - but because Leeds preserved a sense of civic pride through the dismal postwar years when our elected vandals were destroying the heritage of our other big provincial cities.

I've not found a decent guide book (apart from Pevsner, which some visitors find heavy and pricey) to its glories: just walk round the centre with your eyes open.

Eurotour

Politics aside, Leeds is the happening place in Yorkshire for the younger element. Most large city centre pubs stay open until 2am or later and the clubs even later.

Finding something to do in the city during the day is quite easy, especially if you are a shopaholic and bring your credit cards with you.

There are many many great restaurants in the city to eat at. A personal recommendation goes out from me for three special places.

There is a Japanese place just under the railway bridge to the right of the railway station in granary wharf. Dont be put off by what sounds a uniquely undistinguished address, as the Tepan Yaki i think, as it is called is a great night out. The chefs are set up on the counter to cook your food in front of you as they juggle with the eggs and entertain you generally. Watch out just before they serve you up the tuna steaks though. Make sure your head is leaning back as the flames that are a high point could singe your eyebrows if you were a bit to close.

Simply Heathcotes in Leeds tel:+44 (0) 1132446611 is a more plush experience. Once again close to the railway station but across the river this time. This is a place where the stars that visit leeds would want to be seen. Some may call it a little pretentious but, the food and serve they produce here are really quite exquisite. On a nice day the view from a table near to the riverside windows is quite pleasant as well.

Brasserie Forty tel:+44 (0) 1132343232 @ 44 the calls in Leeds is also worth a mention. Good food and good service in a nice regenerated area of the city. Old warehouses have been done up and done out to house some of the highestest character hotels and restaurants the city has to offer now.

There is also a place called the orbit, right across the road from Jurys Inn hotel in leeds and they do the most wonderful burgers on earth. Dont be put of by the burger part of it, they are hand made and the presentation and sauces they come with are out of this world.

Place to go in the nearby area would definitely be a day, and I do mean an entire day at The Royal Armouries. You might well consider a few of the abbeys just outside the city. Some nice pictures and much fuller descriptions of Rievaulx and Bolton Abbey are available here. http://www.hotels-uk-accommodation.c.../bolton-abbey/

http://www.hotels-uk-accommodation.c...ievaulx-abbey/

What ever you do do enjoy Leeds it is a great place to be.

bilboburgler

I live just outside Leeds and use it for my party town. All good recommendations from the others. High tea has to be at Bettys. Now there are a few about. Ilkley, Harrogate and York are all on the local train service from Leeds. Ilkely is a typical yorkshire town, Harrogate is a posher version of ilkley and York is a medievel city with walls partially hidden by a world class train museum. The high tea can be expensive but is worth the queue (yes you may have to queue so go during the week if you can).

Leeds has a good web site (surf) and good theatres as does Ilkley, Bradford, York and Harrogate.

It is Novemeber which is normally dull in UK. however we are still in summer mode at the moment so you could be in luck. If good weather drive to one onf the old abbeys or the West Yorkshire Sculpture park and see wonderful countryside.

Finally Leeds is a sprawl of housing but the acutal city centre is pretty small so you may not want a car all the time (get parking at the hotel if you can) I think it is very pretty but I like the Victorian and the very modern. That is the city you will find.

Now wine shops...

PalenqueBob

OFF TO THE MOORS

An easy day trip from Leeds goes to nearby Haworth, home of the Bronte clan, including the sister writers, one of whom make the surrounding moors famous. Haworth is a neat stone-built old town, with the parsonnage where pa Bronte pontificated - now open for visitors and there is a nearby Bronte museum. and there are lots of nice walks in the desolate stretches of the surrounding moors.

Sans car, hop the local metro train from Leeds to Keighley and from there either go up to Haworth by frequent buses or, better yet, hop the antique steam train that also goes there.

lori_p

Thanks to you all so much for these great tips, and for the history lesson re teas as well. It sounds like we could do with much more than two days. I think we are off to a really good start and look forward to enjoying Leeds.

Best, Lori

caroline_edinburgh

If you have a car and get a good day, I'd recommend the Yorkshire Sculture Park which is off the M1, south of Leeds near Barnsley.

But I wouldn't want to spend 3 days in Leeds.

PalenqueBob

Just hope that Leeds players are vegetarians, unlike some.

sheila

My local Sunday paper had a good article about Leeds yesterday.

http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com...?id=1587422006

bilboburgler

"No one eats meat north of Milton Keynes - You can't be sure what it is.

In fact if you're visiting Leeds - don't go to a spa. you may think yopu are getting a massage - in fact it's a marinade. "

No idea what this is about. As a Southerner living in the North I feel lots of partisan views but generally I find food and meat quality varies by price not region. What expect is that the quality of top quality meat in UK will be up on the US (I have some commercial experience of this) while the turkey twizzlers of the world are much of a muchness. More time is invested in food in the north but we also have, in general, worse diets.

I see three types of spa in the North.

The expensive gym with a pool attached (pretty much the same in Anglo american society. The odd Hammam hidden away in cities and finally the Victorian Spas like in Harrogate. After all we are not talking Finland, Hungary or Japan when we talk Spas

Morgana

As a southerner living in the North too (and working in Leeds!) I too get thoroughly fed up with the 'it's grim oop north' brigade as well. Maybe they think it's funny to say such things?
Waterfall Spa (women only) near Leeds is fabulous by the way.
www.waterfallspa.co.uk
M

PalenqueBob

Leeds i believe, and please correct me if not true, bans pub signs out front the pub - so unlike most British towns where pubs have some neat sounding name and pictograms of big signs announcing their presence, you may have to ferret out pubs in Leeds.

Morgana

Someone is pulling your leg Bob! Leeds has pub signs the same as everywhere else!

bilboburgler

There are fewer ferrets in Pubs in Leeds these days, still plenty in North Yorkshire of course. We are also dogged by terriers while the whippet is more likely to be found in Lancashire

;-)

Are it is grim up north