Potteries, Panto and a spot of shopping – Why Stoke on Trent makes for a perfect festive getaway

When you talk about festive city breaks in the UK, Stoke on Trent would not be top of the list yet when I visited last week courtesy of Visit Stoke, it was the perfect festive getaway. I went to Stoke on Trent as part of a BlogOnVisits trip with www.boorooandtiggertoo.com, www.unconventionalkira.co.uk, www.kirstyleanne.com and mehimthedogandababy.com

Stoke on Trent is also known as the Potteries and our weekend wouldn’t have been complete without visiting as many of them as we could.

Gladstone Pottery Museum

Gladstone Pottery Museum was our first stop of the weekend and it was great to see how the pottery was made with all of the hands-on demonstrations. It is also a great place to try your hand at a couple of skills from throwing a pot to painting a premade one. The great thing is that each activity only cost a few pounds to take part so it was really affordable and I think my girls would love it.

After the Gladstone Pottery Museum, we headed to The Glost House for a bit to eat and my first taste of a Staffordshire oatcake which is unlike any oatcake I have tasted before as it was a bit like a pancake.

Emma Bridgewater Factory

Next on our list and the place I was most looking forward to visiting was the Emma Bridgewater Factory where we had the opportunity to paint our very own piece of Emma Bridgewater pottery.

Seen as I have a very spoilt dog I obviously opted to paint him a water bowl instead of something nice for me.

We finished our evening watching Sleeping Beauty at the Regent Theatre. It was a great night out as a group of adults but there were some local humour and some adult humour that wouldn’t have been suitable for my girls as they are at the age where they want to google everything.

Trentham Gardens and Shopping centre

After a good nights sleep in the Premier Inn, we woke up fresh and ready to visit Trentham Estates, Gardens and shopping village.  The shopping village was full of amazing shops that had great gifts, food and drink and a lot of them had some amazing discounts. The added Christmas decorations and the abundance of dogs walking around made it a very pleasant stroll and my purse came back considerably lighter.

Walking around Trentham Gardens is always a pleasure and the bright winter morning made it really refreshing. I loved showing the other bloggers all of the fairy statues.

Trentham Gardens is great for families as well and you can read my previous post about the fun we had at Monkey Forest and Trentham Gardens.

Middleport Potteries

After walking around Trentham gardens we had built up an appetite and we were ready for lunch. We headed to Middleport Potteries for tea and cafe before exploring the festively decorated potteries.

The weekend flew by and sadly it was time to head home. There was so much more to see in Stoke on Trent and I can’t wait to return to explore some more.