My friends and I ventured out of the small, historic city of York and into the bustling, shiny city of Leeds for an explore. After a short train journey through the Yorkshire countryside, we found ourselves rustling through the sale racks of the Trinity shopping centre, the only place a student belongs on a shopping trip! We were taken aback by the number of shopping centres in the city- who needs so many?!
Once we had exhausted ourselves in the shops, we went on the search for food and landed in Trinity Kitchen. This was a food market on the top floor of the shopping centre, which slightly resembled Spark back home in York- although I have to admit, Spark still has my heart. We all opted for naan wraps or rice bowls from Rola Wala. The food was lovely and had ample vegetarian options for myself and my friends- we cannot wait to go back and try out what else the food market had to offer.
After lunch, we set off to find the University of Leeds campus for no other reason than to be nosy and compare it to our own! We stopped off at the Leeds Town Hall, mistaking it for the Parkinson Tower, which stands at the centre of the university. You can already tell this trip was highly spontaneous and unplanned! Something we noticed on our travels was the strange amount of clock towers in the city, which confused our sense of direction greatly! We finally made it to the actual Parkinson tower and gawked at the university’s fancy buildings (but you can’t beat Hes Hall!), before we headed to the Corn Exchange as our final destination.
The Corn Exchange was my favourite place we visited. The architecture and the independent shops were amazing, and we spent the rest of our day wandering around the shops and laughing at the awful jokes on the birthday cards outside each shop. Unfortunately, a few of the shops were closed. However, we did visit on a Friday, and I imagine that everything is open on weekends. Once we had explored the Corn Exchange, we went back to the station where we treated ourselves with an obligatory packet of Percy Pigs for the train journey home.
Overall, Leeds was a lovely day trip and at only £8.25 for an open return, you can’t go wrong. I enjoyed experiencing the slightly busier and faster pace of life of a more bustling city for the day. However, I was glad to return to the comforts of York.