Travel to Yorkshire - A Winter's Tale

by Vicky
(Harrogate, Yorkshire, England)

The story I'm about to tell highlights a journey from Paris, France to Leeds Bradford Airport in Yorkshire, England. Although we live and work in Yorkshire and so don't actually qualify as visitors, I hope you enjoy the tale...

A couple of years ago my partner took me on a short winter break to Paris. Our flight out from Yorkshire was memorable because due to very high winds the whole trip may well have been cancelled altogether. Bad weather cancellations had caused many planes to be in the wrong places. However, to cut a long story short, we were put onto an alternative flight. We found ourselves aboard a very small jet aircraft that looked like one of those fancy, expensive private jets you see in the movies!

We enjoyed a lovely break in Paris, seeing the sights, such as the Palace of Versailles, the Arc de Triomphe and the cathedral of Notre Dame.

The day of our return to Yorkshire was very cold and the weather forecast for northern Europe and the UK was for snow and blizzards - not very nice, but what can you expect for this time of year in these parts? We learnt that our flight had again been cancelled and we would be travelling on an alternative. We were to fly to Amsterdam and then on to Yorkshire.

Our new flight left at its scheduled time and although we took off through heavy, dark grey clouds that seemed to be holding a lot of snow, it wasn't long before our plane rose above them into bright sunshine. As we approached Amsterdam we could see, way below us, the ground covered in snow. Our plane dropped lower and lower on its approach to the runway. The land and buildings all around looked very pretty in their mantle of crisp white snow. It wasn't long before we had touched down and made our way into the warmth of the terminal building.

Our connecting flight was not due to leave for a couple of hours so we found a small cafe and settled down for a snack lunch. We had not been to Schiphol Airport before and the different sights and sounds helped pass the time.

Eventually our flight was called and we made our way to the departure gate. We were shepherded onto a bus and taken what seemed like miles to what could only be described as a gigantic parking lot for airplanes. Each one must have been parked there for ages - they were covered in ice! When we boarded, the cabin was very cold but quickly warmed up when the pilot fired up the engines. All of a sudden the plane was hit by what seemed like a sudden, violent hale storm. It turned out to be a dosing of de-icer applied to the outside of the plane to rid the fuselage and wings of their thick coating of ice.

Eventually, after all the pilot checks, baggage loading and all the other necessary preparations were complete; we taxied to the end of the runway and were up, up and away. After only a short time we had crossed the North Sea and were approaching Leeds Bradford Airport. Shortly after we were collecting our baggage and hailing a taxi to take us home.

Our return trip to Yorkshire had been by a roundabout route. But we were safely carried to our destination and arrived only a couple of hours after our original flight had been scheduled to land.