UK Roadtrip: Lake District

The last episode of the UK Roadtrip series, the Lake District, is long overdue but here it comes!

You may remember that we were last in Edinburgh and from there it took a couple of hours to drive to the Lake District. We entered from the north-east, in the Ullswater area. The weather was a bit mixed, as you can see, mostly clowdy but not any rain really.

I was really positively surprised by the Lake District. I had heard so many nice things about it and of course expected it to be beautiful but I didn't think it was going to be so spectacular! I was expecting valleys and hills (and lakes of course), but not that the landscape was going to be so hilly with high mountains and low valleys (at least for the UK; not comparing with the Himalayas really). I hope the pictures show a little bit what I mean.

Ullswater

Many, or most, roads in the Lake District are lined with stone walls and sometimes right at the edge of the road, making meeting another car on a narrow road a bit tricky, especially when you're not that used to driving on the left side.

Below illustrates that some of the road network in the Lake District is at a high altitude, the highest peak being almost 1,000 metres.

I like this picture with the lone tree

In the Lake District you have to be prepared to share the road not only with other cars and hikers on foot, but also many, many sheep.

Beware of sheep

We decided to pick Ambleside as our "home" for the two nights in "the Lakes". Ambleside is situated at the top of Windermere, the Lake District and also England's largest lake. We stayed at a B&B called Elder Grove in a beautiful room with a so-called half-poster bed. The breakfast was lovely; cooked breakfast was on offer (of course) in addition to cereal, fruit and very delicious home-made bread and jams. The only thing I can complain about is that our room had a faint smell of damp - not sure if it was something in the carpet or the walls. It was just noticeable for a the first moments upon entering the room but I did wonder if it was just typical English house damp or something the owners should look into (but we didn't bother telling them actually - maybe they will read this?).

Bridge House is probably Ambleside's smallest house (it's almost square-shaped). It was built as a summer house and apple store 300 years ago but is now an information centre for the National Trust.

Ambleside has a lot of shops and restaurants for being such a small town. And THREE CINEMAS! I assume most of them and definitely the cinemas are closed in the winter though (??). Even if the lakes are quite popular all-year-round the main tourist season is the summer. The first evening we went Italian at Zeffirelli's (the bar area upstairs as the main restaurant was fully booked) and the second evening for more English or local dishes at Sheila's Cottage - can recommend both! Among the curiosities of Ambleside is the Homes of Football, a photograhic art museum. We didn't go in but saw some of the photos in the window and it looked quite interesting (if you have more time).

The second day we explored the area around Windermere lake as well as another smaller lake to the west, Coniston Waters.

Sailers on Lake Windermere

Peter finds a furry friend

Coniston

Typical steam yatch gondolas touring Coniston lake

The second and last evening we went to the country club our B&B is linked with for a swim and a sweat in the sauna, followed by a walk in Ambleside before dinner. It was that time of night when the light is so beautiful, especially when the sun comes out after the rain (not the blue hour yet perhaps but still very beautiful).









That's it, the series is over! Hope you enjoyed the ride!