HOLIDAY: Chester (incl Cheshire Oaks)

 

According to the blog it's been a long, long time since we last visited Cheshire Oaks... 2016 in fact. Hard to believe, but it certainly hasn't been in the last five years, I know that much. I didn't think we'd buy all that much, but we did pick up a few bits; more Lindt, a LeCrueset mug (blue this time), some books, some trainers and a new chopping board from ProCook.

Not too much has changed, some of the shops have moved around and there's been some new building to accommodate more stores, but for the most part it was all pretty familiar. TAG Heuer is still in the same place and amazingly the guy in there (Joe) remembered me from a previous visit, he even remembered which watch I was looking at which is mind boggling! 

Anyway, after about three hours spent mooching around, we headed off to Chester.

The Crowne Plaza hotel is well situated in the town centre, just around the corner from Kuckoo (an amazing cocktail bar)... for the most part it's very nice, the bar and restaurant are lovely, the pool is great, it's just that the rooms are very tired and in dire need of a refurb. So much so that we actually got a hefty discount when we complained.

I had planned to go swimming before dinner, but in the end we decided to sit in the bar for a couple of hours and that was really nice, apart from the sun getting in my eyes - hardly the hotel's fault though! 

We had a great meal there to celebrate our 31st wedding anniversary, both had chicken burger and fries, and white chocolate and red velvet cheesecake (Rose) and brownie for me. 

After this we headed off to Kuckoo for a couple of cocktails. Rose had the Strawberry and Marshmallow Schwing (complete with toasted marshamallows on top!), followed by an 'Um Bongo'. I had a Kuckoo Kolada, followed by a Cookie Dough Delight (which included a cookie and a small bar of Dairy Milk!).

Kuckoo Kolada

Coconut Rum, Lychee Liqueur,Cocunt Syrup, Fresh Lime Juice, Pineapple Juice, Fresh Cream.

Strawberry and Marshmallow Schwing

Beefeater Gin, Limoncello, Strawberry Syrup and Puree, Fresh Lemon Juice

Cookie Dough Delight

Mount Gay Eclipse Rum, Mozart Gold, Caramel Syrup, Vanilla Syrup, Fresh Cream

Um Bongo

Beefeater Gin, Blackberry Liqueur, Passoa,Passionfruit Syrup, Pineapple and Lemon Juice

After that we headed back to the bar for one more drink before retiring for the night. I slept reasonably well (the bed was pretty comfortable and HUGE) but Rose didn't, and even then the noisy radiators in the room starting at 6am didn't help matters.

When we looked out of the windows we saw there was quite a lot of mist over the city...

I was determined to go swimming though, since I hadn't been since before the pandemic. So I headed off down to the pool and managed to equal the 80 lengths I did on our last visit.

I would say the pool is probably about a quarter of the length of the Northampton pool so about 20 proper lengths, which is what I would aim for when I go back there...

Knowing that we have a habit of getting up and going straight home we had booked an Escape Room for 12pm. So we had a little while to wander around Chester before heading up there. We had to get out of the hotel car park by 2pm so we decided to move the car beforehand, otherwise it would be a bit of a rush.

We couldn't get in to the 3 star room so we had to do the 3.5 star room called 'Conservation'. It was good, but we had quite a lot of help and as usual we wasted quite a bit of time at the start wondering what on Earth we were supposed to do. Still, once we got into the spirit of it we did okay even if we didn't manage to complete the whole thing. It was quite enjoyable anyway... even if we were quite sleepy.

After we finished that and had our photo taken for their Social Media, we headed back down into the town and had a quick walk around the walls, which quickly petered out (think we should have headed left instead of right). So we stopped at a pub called 'The Pied Bull' which was quite nice and had a drink there.

After that we made for Chester Cathedral, which we weren't sure if we'd visited before until we got inside, we had but it was still nice to look around and there were a couple of exhibits there that hadn't been there the first time we went. First of all there was a huge LEGO model of the cathedral which was incredible (a pity you couldn't see all of the detail inside but at least they provided photos of it all).

And secondly in the courtyard they had these weird animal sculpture things made by Stanislav Borowski...

Then we made a quick stop in Hotel Chocolat and headed back to the car, having already planned to make a stop at the legendary 'Pheasant' at Tattenhall which we had been to two or three times before. It's quite a long way from anywhere and a bit of a pain in the arse to get too, but it's so nice there and the food was excellent.

Rose had fish and chips followed by pear & frangipane tart, while I had steak & ale pie followed by an enormous and spectacular sticky toffee pudding with salted caramel ice cream. 

It's such a nice place and a lovely relaxed atmosphere that makes you want to sit there all day... and made for a perfect second anniversary meal (a bit of a safety net had the first one been disappointing).

But time was ticking on and we had a three hour drive home, so reluctantly we hoisted ourselves back into the car and set of down the long a winding road back to the M6.