12 September
Now we've back across the (Irish) Sea having passed through a small part of Wales and a good bit of Britain's Midlands (Link to definition).
Our first stop here is NOT in the Midlands but north of it in the Lake District in the county of Cumbria in Northwest England.
We started the day by taxi to the Ferry Piers in Dublin. Check-in was late due to rough seas yesterday clobbering their schedule; they're still catching up. We boarded to our seats in the Club section of Irish Ferries "Jonathan Swift" which takes two hours to Holyhead, Wales (pronounced "holly head". The actual transit took a little over two hours with a comfortable ride.
At Holyhead we took another Hertz vehicle and drove the Motorways but cleverly avoided Liverpool and Manchester by using A55 & M6 to the Lake District. It took something like 3.5 hours to cover the 195 miles from Holyhead to Windermere.
And guess what is in the forecast for tomorrow - that's right, Heavy Rain. At least the driving today was sans rain; that would really have made me nervous. The Brits have different driving traditions and mostly stick to them. For instance, always travel in the slow lane unless actively passing. Speed limits are either strictly adhered to, or ignored altogether.
The hotel is in Windermere, the larger resort town in the region. Lake Windermere is the longest lake in Britain. All around it are the highest "mountains" in GB, the tallest reaching 3,209 feet. The region is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
We checked in and got a wee, tiny room up over the car park entrance archway. Getting the suitcases up from the car park through the archway to the entry door up front, then upstairs to the second floor, up a little more, then down and into the cubbyhole was interesting to say the least. When we leave, I'm going to throw them out the window.
We made arrangements for dinner, then walked (to be using our legs again) down toward the lake. Did some shopping and took pictures. D got a new jacket & over-the-shoulder tote-bag.
Back up the hill to the hotel for a glass and rest. Then we had dinner in the hotel dining room that was quite good.
Then back to the wee room to take it easy and do these notes. The rain has started.
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13 September
We slept in a little, then lazed a little, then went to breakfast. There we encountered a bunch of people who apparently had the same idea.
Breakfast was nice, part buffet, part to order. There was a nice rainbow to give hope that the day will be nice.
Then back to the room to plan our day.
Now (1020) the rain has returned with enthusiasm. We scheduled a full-day mini-bus tour for tomorrow, so we'll see most of the area without driving it. Too much traffic around here to try to navigate ourselves.
About 1100 the sun came back. We strolled down the hill to the Bowness village and then to the Peter Rabbit Connection. Now, I could give a hoot less about rabbits named Mopsy, etc., but D thought it was cute. I learned a bit about Beatrix Potter, so it wasn't a waste.
We sat in the bar at the Old John Peel inn for a glass, then hit the streets again.
We found the Post Office and mailed a card, then went to the waterfront to take pictures of swans and boats.
D then did a little more shopping for the grandsons and eventually I bought a shirt (on sale) I'll be able to use in JB.
We came back up the hill (more slowly) to rest for a bit.
You must understand the nature of our walks here; they have a horizontal, but also a significant vertical dimension.
After a short rest, we hiked back down part of the hill to Rastelli Ristorani, a little Italian place we'd seen, for dinner.
The bruschetta, entrees, and profiteroles were very nice and the wine was good. We had a good chat with the waitress and the owner, and were very pleased with the place.
Then *back* up the hill to the hotel and up the steps to the room to rest.
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14 September
Today is tour day. Mountain Goat tours will provide a mini-bus and driver-guide to take us all over the area on a tour they call Ten Lakes Spectacular.
The tour literature says it will include a lake tour, Buttermere, Grasmere (Wordsworth's home), Castlerigg Stone Castle, Keswick and a number of other places in between them.
Forecast for today is <5% chance of rain, temperature will rise to 13*C (about 56f); cloudy right now.
Well, the weather held and the Mountain Goat ran. The Goat ran all over the hills, through passes, up tiny trails, and met a number of vehicles on single-lane roads. Our driver was very capable - I could never have done what he did.
The route map is at the right. Mountain Goat's description will have to wait for a copier. Our route is shown in White.
We headed out of Windermere about 0935 north over Kirkstone Pass (some 1,800 feet, narrow road) and took some great scenery pictures (D took 416 pictures today). Castlerigg Stone Circle was done, and we reached Keswick. There, we did a 50-minute ride on Derwentwater (lake) which was three feet over normal height due to recent rains.
Then off to Buttermere and back to Keswick through Honiston Pass (some 1,600 feet, narrow road). Eventually then down through Grasmere (William Wordsworth's home) and Ambleside back to Windermere where we were dropped at our hotel about 1710.
I'm going to post this and include the link to D's photos, which I finally cut down to 225.
Photo Link
15 September
We're off cross-country again, passing out of the Lake District National Park and through Yorkshire Dales National Park to the city of York. There, we'll take a day to tour the town and stay at the small Exhibition Hotel over a pub. The HOHO bus begins its rounds across the street, quite convenient.
You may have noticed we tend to stay off the Motorways in favor of the "A" class roads. Just as with our US vs. Interstate Highways, you see more on the "A"s.
The trip through the Dales NP was very nice. Lots of great scenery, even including a couple of massive railroad viaducts. Most of the distance was on A684, but we were thrown off onto a "B" class road for a number of miles.
That road was somewhere between 1.5 lanes and 0.75 lanes. Very narrow, but we only met one vehicle that we had to negotiate our way past - actually I put ours as far left as I could and he wiggled his truck and animal trailer past me.
You can look at the day's pictures for the scenery. We passed through Hawes, Aysgarth, and Leyburn en route to Thirsk. There, we took off to the east to get to Helmsley, so we could say we'd visited the North York Moors NP.
While on a "deviation" (a detour to us) we came across the ruins of an old abbey. Across from it was a little tearoom and we needed a stop. We went into the tearoom, used the facilities and had a nibble & coffee.
Then we crossed the road and paid admission to Byland Abbey. The literature says it was one of the largest in the area in the 13th and 14th centuries. The church itself was 100m long x 43m across the transepts, and there were cloisters and covered buildings outside that. When I get to a copier I'll copy and attach the researchers view of what it looked like. Absolutely astounding, especially when coming upon it by accident.
We made it into Helmsley and back out, down to York, and into the Exhibition Hotel car park (almost by accident - just happened to see the sign). A young male employee got some keys and allowed us access into a parking spot from which I'm not moving until we leave.
It was still fairly early so we went walking. The Visitors Center came up, so we got some recommendations, and bought tickets for the HOHO bus. We hiked back to the bus stop, boarded and went on, looking at things as the driver threaded that bus through terrible traffic and any number of ambulances. The impressive things beside the Minster were Clifford's Tower and the Railway Station and the Railway Museum. We'll do some combination of these after the Minster tomorrow.
After dismounting we walked all the way around the Minster and up a few streets. D took a huge number of pictures that I'll have to whittle down to size.
Then we returned to the Exhibition Hotel. The pub there was running their steak special - two steaks gets you a bottle of wine to go with them. Gotcha.
We both enjoyed our steaks, and the wine. Then we came up to our room (as tiny as the one at Windermere with an even smaller shower) and started relaxing.
We noticed then that the room was more than cool, just plain cold, and the radiator was cold. We fiddled with the water-flow valve to no avail, then tipped off management. They found that someone downstairs had secured the whole system. Once they opened that valve, we had heat. Odd sort of thing to happen.
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16 September
Up to find a gray day, 10*C and a promise of rain. Humph. Well, we'll see what happens.
The hotel here has a rather narrow window for breakfast - 0830 to 0900. So we adjusted and did it. It was perfectly acceptable but had not as broad a selection as some others.
Another reason for being up early was to afford us time in this compact but historic city to do several things.
The first "thing" was York Minster. Minster was an early term for a missionary church. It's also a Cathedral, being the seat of a bishop and the mother church of the diocese. If I recall correctly, the Archbishop of York takes second place after the Archbishop of Canterbury in church hierarchy.
This is a place of superlatives. It's huge in many ways. Its glass windows contain more than three million pieces of glass. The great east window, completed in 1408 is the largest expanse of medieval glass in the world. It is larger than a tennis court.
The church construction began in the 1100's. The North Transept was completed in 1253 and other parts were finished until 1465. Since then, fires have destroyed parts of it and reconstruction or restoration replaced the original parts.
I'll let you look through the literature on York Minster in the above link and in this Link. It really is a fantastic place with a history.
York itself was founded by the Romans in 71AD. The Romans had numerous large structures there, and there are ruins to be viewed. Constantine was proclaimed Emperor on the Minster grounds in 306AD and turned the empire to Christianity. Later the Vikings invaded and took over the area, calling it Jorvik. The Normans were next and so forth.
D took scads of pictures today, most of the Minster. I'll probably leave them unlabeled because I won't know what they are.
We had a tour guide named Allison Norman who was just plain outstanding. She never stuttered or got side-tracked once. She's an outstanding presenter of fact and has in her speech a little irreverence toward authority. One saying she left with us is that Yorkshiremen have short arms and deep pockets, alluding to people who are careful with their money.
Slow walking and standing are harder on us now, so the tour and the self-guided part we did after the formal tour wore us out. We returned to our hotel/pub for a glass. Then we did the HOHO bus again, sitting "downstairs" this time. Now we could hear the tour narration much better and learned a lot more about the place.
After that, we needed a full-bore, feet-up rest. So we repaired to the room to do that.
At 1800 we noticed the time and D wanted to go to a neighborhood church. So I walked her there, then went off to mail a postcard and research dinner spots. I stopped at a pub called The House of Trembling Madness, but the bar was full so I looked at some of the beers for sale off-premise and found a few from the US that I enjoy.
I met her after church; we went to Mama Mia around the corner from the hotel. It's been in business for 30 years so we figured it would be ok. It was more than that - it was very very good. The obviously Italian owner was really running the place and doing everything but cook. We had good food and a profiteroles dessert, then waddled back to the hotel. Time to rest.
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Out of York after breakfast at about 0930 and into the Sunday driving. Aside from a couple of showers it wasn't too bad until we got off M1 and headed for the Peak District NP.
Then we got showers, mist, and all sorts of things as we went west on A628. We couldn't see the peaks the park is named for. But we saw a big valley/canyon followed by some nice lakes.
The traffic was intense and the speed limit there varied from 30 to 40, occasionally 50. We just rode along with the rest.
We arrived at the hotel in Chester and asked for a parking gate code so we could stow the car. We left everything in it while we set off to look at the town.
We walked over the Shropshire Union canal, turned right onto Eastgate and through the town wall. This town is completely encircled by the town wall.
There were lots of people out even though the weather was cool with some sun periods.
The Visitors Center across from the Cathedral gave us information and sold us tickets to the HOHO bus + the river cruise (and some other stuff).
So we took the HOHO to stop Three and hopped onto the boat. It went 15 minutes up-river past some fantastic 1890's homes on the high bank, and a few bankside cottages. D got many pictures. When the boat turned to come back we could look at the other side, mainly pasture but with a few large homes.
Then we rejoined the HOHO and rode the rest of the way around town. We'll likely do it again in the morning because there was lots to see.
After dismounting at the Cathedral/Visitor Center, we hiked back toward the hotel to the Old Queen's Head pub. There, we partook of the Sunday Roast - an English tradition. Our beef roast came with roast beef, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, carrots, peas and Yorkshire pudding. Plus whatever sauce you want - I took horseradish. All this with a bottle of Merlot from Chile cost 27 GBP, not bad at all.
Off to the hotel then (The Mill Hotel and Spa), getting the bags from the car on the way. This place is unique; it has rooms on both sides of the Shropshire Union canal, with a footbridge connecting the two buildings. The building where reception is located looks like a renovated warehouse but the one across the bridge appears new.
So we horsed our bags through a dozen fire-doors that must remain shut to our room across the canal. The room is large (by reservation) with two doubles and a couch and a large work desk. Very, very nice. It even overlooks the canal and the older section.
So we're here. And sort of tired. So we'll rest.
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18 September
A full day in Chester to play and learn. We did the HOHO to the center of town, briefly walked through the market (little areas selling objects of one subject, like hardware) and went to the Cathedral.
Begun in 1092, the Cathedral is another interesting pile of stones to include the church and the cloisters for monks. It's big. There's a big drive on right now to get more people interested in it and to help support it.
One project is ARK, which stands for something. There are art objects of animals all through the cathedral that would have been on the ark. Some are really good, some are funny. Dolores took pictures of many of them, as well as the Cathedral itself.
After a couple of hours there, we went across the street to the Dublin Packet for a restorative. I had a cask IPA that wasn't to my taste and D had a Strawberry-Lime cider.
We walked south on Bridge Street then east on Pepper Street to the old Roman Amphitheater. It was started in 80 AD and upgraded around 300 AD, reaching a capacity of about 7,000 spectators. A section of the old Roman wall has been discovered and preserved across the street. Just west of these two along Souter Lane is a garden with many Roman stones transplanted from other sites; one set of stones would have been the layer under the baths pool through which hot air was sent to warm the pool above. Interesting.
From there we walked back north to Eastgate and wound our way back to the canal-side entrance into our hotel's south wing. We've definitely had enough hiking and will rest until our scheduled dining in Canaletto (the hotel's dining room) at 1900.
So, no more cathedrals or castles.
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