It was silly o’clock on Monday morning when we set off to catch a plane to Manchester and begin our adventure. The plan was to stay in Rookery Hall Hotel and Spa for 2 nights and spend Monday exploring Cheshire and the surrounding area. On Tuesday we would go to the Emma Bridgewater Collectors day before flying home on Wednesday evening. In order to give us as much time as possible we decided to get the first flight out on Monday morning.
It was only a short flight from Belfast to Manchester Airport and on arrival we picked up our hire car ‘FiFi’ the Fiat 500. A quick 20minute car journey later and we arrived at Rookery Hall. We arrived well before check-in time so we left our luggage and decided to go for lunch in the nearby town of Nantwich. While we were there we took a little look around the shops too (thank you to one of my Instagram followers for the local knowledge!!).
Nantwich is a really picturesque market town and was best explored on foot so we parked up FiFi the Fiat and went exploring.
After a quick walk through the town my tummy started growling, I’d had breakfast at 5am and that seemed like a lifetime ago so we decided to go for an early lunch. A quick search on the Tripadvisor app and we found a cute sandwich shop called ‘Bloom’ which was only on the next street. Bloom was a lovely little cafe where we re-fueled with sourdough sandwiches and oodles of tea finished off with big slice of homemade ginger cake for good measure.
*For those who are into their motor cycles, this one parked in front of the cafe drew quite a lot of attention from men walking past.
Tummies suitably satisfied, off we went to explore the rest of the historic and beautiful town of Nantwich. Between the 14th century black and white timber buildings were lots of beautiful interiors shops filled to the brim with stunning furniture, textiles and accessories…if only I lived closer.
Around mid-afternoon the temperature had creeped up into the low 30’s so we decided to venture back to the hotel to check-in and use the swimming pool and spa to cool down. Phew!
Sitting outside on the terrace overlooking the gardens in 30 degree heat, you could have easily convinced me that I was in France.
After a quick cool down in the swimming pool and spa we dragged ourselves away from the to check and check the rest of the hotel.
Our room was in the original house which has 12 rooms named after the months. We were staying in ‘May’. It was right above that middle window in the picture above and enjoyed beautiful views of the garden and Cheshire countryside.
Like a complete blogging novice I forgot to take photos of the room but I assure you it was lovely.
On Monday evening we booked a table in the 2 AA rosette restaurant at the hotel for dinner. As the weather was beautiful, we went down early and spent an hour out on the terrace and sampled a few Gins on the extensive list.
Forest gin which is made in nearby Macclesfield in small batch was a particular highlight, paired with mango and rosemary garnish and a Fever Tree slimline tonic it was perfect for a sunny July evening. On the whole, all of the bar staff at the hotel were very knowledgeable and were able to recommend and suggest the different gins for our particular tastes and were able to pair each with a tonic and garnish to compliment each.
The next day we were up and away super early to make the 45 minute drive to the Emma Bridgewater Factory in Stoke-en-Trent. You can read about the Collectors Day here! Tuesday evening consisted of some more Gin tasting following by a light dinner out on the terrace.
On Wednesday morning we had a hearty cooked breakfast to keep us going before our long journey home. On our way back to Manchester Airport we made a detour to Cheshire Oaks Outlet Village (which is a bit like Kildare Shopping Outlet for any Irish readers!). We spent a couple of hours noodling around the shops. I didn’t buy much as we were travelling on hand luggage only but I did get a very cute dress out of Jack Wills. Cheshire Oaks is a pretty large outlet so by the time we had walked around it was nearly lunchtime so we had a quick bite of lunch in Yo! Sushi before making our way back to Manchester Airport. We dropped off FiFi the Fiat 500 before hopping aboard our flight home.
All good things must come to an end…until our next adventure 😉
Much Love,
Judy xo
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