Showing posts with label Ambleside. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ambleside. Show all posts

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Easter at the Lakes

The main point of our trip to the Lakes was a nice walk. And, for once, almost everything went to plan! The weather was spectacular, and the 6km walk was amazing (thanks to the walk guidebook Paul had bought in Ambleside the night before).

The walk starts over mountains...


...continues into a wood...


...and comes back along a Lake. This is Wordsworth Country, so we read Wordsworth's poetry to each other as we walked. The best spot we found to read it was on a tree over the lake (below, centre).


Feeling very satisfied and lucky to have found a walk away from the crowds, we continued back into Ambleside, where we visited the house and garden of our resident poet, William Wordsworth.


We stopped briefly at a delicious bakery in Ambleside to feast on hot cross buns by a picturesque river, then left the Lake District and continued east.


We stopped briefly in Skipton to visit an old castle.


The reason we came to Bradford for night #3 was to see where Paul's granny (who passed away a few days before we left New Zealand) was born. That was a great experience.

Paul in front of the house where his granny was born in 1916.

Afterwards, we headed into Bradford town for a curry dinner. Apparently they're good here, according to the Lonely Planet.


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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Onwards and Northwards

Our hostel in Manchester is in Castlefield, which is a really cool area right by the canal. Manchester somehow manages to pull off being an industrial graveyard and still be charming. We walked through the city to the Art Gallery in the morning and loved seeing all the train bridges and other signs of the industry that once existed here. Thomas the Tank Engine now makes even more sense to me.

Our hostel in Manchester on the right, the canal on the left.
After leaving the Art Gallery, we headed straight on the road North to the Lakes, wanting to make sure we got as much time there as possible.


We pulled into a quaint little town called Ambleside, and despite the greying weather (and bad pub food), loved it. The town was a welcome relief from stalling and bunnyhops! It felt like the sort of place they created the word "quaint" to describe... no surprise that it's where Beatrix Potter comes from.

A quaint little house on a bridge in quaint little Ambleside.

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