Must visit Harrogate, United Kingdom

by bicska review

► added on 23rd of May, 2009

I spent a few months in Harrogate, working like an aupair (summer, 2008). I thing that city is very nice ang a good destination in North Yorkshire.

Harrogate is a town in North Yorkshire, England, with a population of 70,000. It is part of the larger Harrogate administrative district.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Harrogate was extremely popular among the English elite and was frequented by nobility from around Europe. Its popularity declined after World War I. During World War II, however, Harrogate's large hotels accommodated government offices that had been evacuated from London. This paved the way for the town's current function as a commercial, conference, and exhibition centre. The town hosted the Eurovision Song Contest in 1982.

Harrogate was the winner of the 2003 Britain in Bloom in the category of 'Large Town'. From there it went on to win the European Entente Florale competition in 2004. This reprises its win in the first ever Entente Florale competition in 1977.

Harrogate is now a centre of the exhibition and conference113 trade and has many guest houses, hotels and restaurants catering for the regular influx of visitors. The town also acts, to some extent, as a dormitory town for commuters working in the cities of Leeds114 and Bradford.

Knaresborough in like 8 miles fromHarrogate, easy to go whit bike or train.

Prior to the discovery of its naturally iron and sulphur rich water, Harrogate was a minor village close to the historic town of Knaresborough69. The first mineral spring in Harrogate was discovered by William Slingsby in 1571, who found that water from the Tewitt Well possessed similar properties to that from the springs of the Belgian town of Spa. The medicinal properties of the waters were more widely publicised by one Edmund Deane, whose book, Spadacrene Anglica, or the English Spa Fountain was published in 1626. Following this Harrogate developed considerable fame as a spa town.