St Florence to Crewe (Stoke on Trent)

We had to say a fond farewell to Elm Grove.  We truly loved this place.  It was beautiful and romantic, it felt like home.  We would highly recommend staying here, we both agreed that it was probably the best nights we have ever spent in any accommodation anywhere in our travels. We only planned to stay one night but as soon as we arrived we knew that was going to change and we are so glad we did.  Alan, is the nicest host and quick to highlight anything you might wish to see or do, they treat their place like you are their family, truly, like family, Basically the rule is if the door has a number on it do not enter, it is a guest room, otherwise go wherever you wish in the manor house.

Today was a big day of driving, roughly 6 hours on the road and how awesome was it.  We wanted to see some of Snowdonia National Park (it is too big to see in 1 day).  It was visually spectacular and the photos do not do it justice.  On the way we had to drive through more tunnel like roads so Sean again morphed into a rally driver and this time I took some footage.   Check out the photos and there are two videos from the "co-driver" seat.  It felt like a WRC rally stage at times with the tight "B" roads, with very tight turns, closed in feel, and blind corners. Sean has included the driving route link below as well as the photos link.  The Skoda Fabia hire car we have is not as powerful as Sean's car at home as he has the sports version but he still had a helluva lot of fun.

We stopped at Lake Bala for some selfies then continued on to a farmhouse roadside stop that does organic food/produce and organic roadside food.  We had the best sausage roll and we both wished we had not shared it between us.

From there we left Wales and headed back into England and to our next overnighter at Crewe Hall, check out the photos.  Crew Hall is a huge manor house (much like Downton Abbey) but unfortunately we are staying in the modern West Wing, not in the house itself.  We do however have a brilliant view of the house from our window.  We did take a look around at many of the rooms and the grounds.  They were very grand.  It was nice being able to have a look without any crowds.  I plan to visit the Downton Abbey Manor when we get to Oxford and I am sure I won't get a private viewing like we did today.


Driving Route
2019-09-17 - St Florence to Crewe (Stoke on Trent)