Weekend trip to Leeds and Sheffield

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Travelling Europe while living in Lincoln

Tips for travelling this summer

We decided to go on a last-minute trip to make the most of our time in the UK, but didn’t want to travel too far or spend too much money – that’s us below.

Living in Lincoln means there are lots of good options to choose from, with plenty of fulfilling experiences depending on what you are interested in.

Eventually, we chose to go to Leeds and Sheffield in one weekend. The total cost for travel was around £14 each for the train and the coach, and it took around two hours to get to our starting point in Leeds.

We chose Leeds first because we found a really good place to stay through AirBnB, and it was cheaper than similar ones in Sheffield. Six of us travelled together and we paid a total of 50 pounds for the room so it was good value.

Leeds is a bustling city with many modern shopping malls and beautiful buildings, but we were interested in history and so took a taxi to Kirkstall Abbey, which is away from the city centre.
The taxi costs 12 pounds for us all and we loved to see the ruins of a Cistercian monastery and a beautiful park nearby which is definitely worth a visit.

When we got back to the centre of Leeds, we visited the Victoria Quarter; Victoria Gate; Leeds Corn Exchange; Civic Quarter; Headrow and Briggate; and The Royal Armouries Museum. The museum is fantastic as it displays many various weapons from various countries at different timelines. It was also free to enter. We chose a popular Hongkong restaurant called Little Bao Boy to have our lunch, and also visited Mooboo Milk Tea. Everything there is delicious with reasonable prices.

We cooked dinner for ourselves at the AirBnB. As the weather is cold, we preferred to eat inside and chat with each other. It was a great time to talk as we had all just finished our first semester and are from different courses.

Then we headed to Sheffield. Although Sheffield is not as busy as Leeds, this city impressed us with its natural beauty.

According to recent studies, Sheffield ranked is the sixth greenest city in the UK. There are lots of great parks with many friendly squirrels and a variety of plants.

We went to the Botanical Gardens, which is a big greenhouse filled with plants for people to experience. We tried a restaurant called Noodle Doodle for lunch – the roasted duck dish there is really nice.

The thing that I loved most is that the entrance fee is free for most destinations, which lets you experience as much as possible. Each of us paid around 55 pounds in total for the trip and we are already planning the next one.

Written By Anh, MSc Tourism and Marketing student from Vietnam