High above Lake Windermere at Wansfell

After Ambleside we moved just a few miles down the road – literally less than 15 minutes by taxi – to Windermere. Well, technically to a lodge two miles north of Windermere, right on the big lake of the same name. The hotel was fantastic, an old 19th century mansion converted beautifully to a hotel, every detail just perfect. What a place to settle in for three days of hiking and eating and relaxing.

First off, I love the Lake District. I remember reading about it decades ago in a biography of Woodrow Wilson. He started coming to the area when he was President of Princeton University and fell in love, so much that he later regretted not buying a place here. One day while I was hiking on a small, narrow road up to a tiny village named Troutbeck I was wondering if Wilson had walked this same route. Turns out there is an historic house on the route – a 400-year-old property owned by 12 generations of the Browne family – and at one point the description of the property explains that this was one of Wilson’s favorite walks in the Lake Country. So yes, I was walking in his footsteps.

The elegant Langdale Chase Hotel outside of Windermere

Walking the fells – the hills and mountains above the tree line – is the major activity in the Lakes District and we did a lot of that during our stay. Just beautiful walking and hiking on small country lanes and usually well marked trails, ultimately to places with spectacular views. The highlight of this three-night stop was up to Wansfell, high above Ambleside. And a bonus for the hike was that along maybe the first third there were endless blackberry bushes with the berries just coming into season. Yum!

The weather has remained surprisingly cool and – while usually overcast – pretty dry. Such a respite from the heat in much of the rest of Europe and the U.S. I’ve worn a sweater pretty much every day since we left London four weeks ago, but I’m not complaining. And then the last morning in Windermere, getting ready to go to Liverpool, the skies are perfectly blue – I’m pretty sure the first time since we left New York. Really beautiful.

On our final morning the skies cleared and we had these beautiful views of the lake

One thing that strikes me hiking around northern England and Scotland are the stone property boundaries. You have to wonder just how many miles of rock boundary walls? How many untold hours of human labor went into them? They’re just everywhere, winding up and over and around the hills. They’re often hundreds of years old and they’re just rock – no filling or anything to hold them in place. And there are still experts who repair and rebuild walls that are damaged for one reason or another. We asked one local at the hotel why they go through the significant expense of repairing the stone walls as opposed to just replacing broken parts with modern fencing. “Because they’re beautiful,” he explained. Fair enough.

Working my way gently up the hill, wondering about all those stone property boundaries

And so we are now half way through this UK explorer, done with 13 of 26 stops. Now it’s a quick stop in Liverpool on our way to Wales.

The Great Hall of our hotel

Climbing the stairs to our room

The terrace at our hotel. For the most part the weather wasn’t begging you to sit out there but the blankets made it cozy.

Speaking of blankets, we did an evening lake cruise one night before dinner and the blankets helped. Note the champagne glass sitting there – very civilized!

More of the cruise. We didn’t book a private tour but no one else signed up, so we had a private tour.

Hiking down to Ambleside

The paths weren’t always this gentle but we appreciated this stretch

The library in the Browne’s cottage, added to the house in 1672. There are 44 books in the collection that are completely unique, with no other copy existing. The oldest book is a New Testament from 1548.

Another welcome sight on the trails. On our first day there were only a tiny number of ripe berries but by day three they were doing a lot better!

This was one of Mark’s highlights. He figured out the local bus system, making it way easier to get into town and back for lunch. Here he is on his first ride on the upper level of the bus.

Can’t get enough sheep pictures, huh?

We’re doing our best, though

Meals are always a big part of our day. This is our hotel restaurant with big juicy oysters. Strangely, we encountered a nearly identical octopus serving dish in London at a tapas restaurant!

Lunch at The Schelly in Ambleside. It’s a tiny Michelin-listed restaurant with some of the seats facing out onto the little local square, great for people watching.

The bar after dinner

Hiking pictures

And more hiking pictures

Lakeside, looking up at Langdale Chase Hotel

The terrace at night

We saw a few of these signs and kept wondering what the sheepdogs were accused of…

Taking a little rest after climbing up, up, up above the whole valley around Lake Grasmere

After two weeks in magical Scotland we crossed the border again into England’s beautiful Lake District. Our first three-night stop there was in the countryside outside the tiny village of Chapel Stile, not far from the pretty town of Ambleside.

Life does not move too fast in the English countryside. We spent most of our time walking and hiking and looking at bright green scenery under mostly gloomy skies. And sometimes the sun would peek out a bit and make the whole landscape beautiful in a different way. It’s an incredibly picturesque land of lakes and hills and stone walls and lots and lots of sheep. Which I take too many pictures of.

Well deserved credit for all the institutions that had to come together to put a little public bathroom in the tiny village of Chapel Stile

One little challenge in hiking here is following the path. The trails aren’t marked very well, though we did have some very detailed descriptions on paper of the hikes we took on. That’s all fine and good as long as you can manage to translate all the specialty outdoorsy terms that the English love to use. We were constantly on the lookout for such things as pulls, cairns, knolls, gills, spurs, fells, cols, bridleways, and metalled lanes.

One other activity that consumes a bit of one’s time in the Lake District is trying to find some decent food. We all know that the British are not famed for their culinary achievements, though we manage to sniff out some great restaurants most of the time. That challenge gets a lot harder in tiny little towns. It’s hard to find more than pub food, which is almost shockingly breaded, heavy, and unhealthy. To make things worse, we happened to be in Ambleside on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights. And for some cruel reason, the few real “restaurants” only open Wednesday through Saturday.

The only exception seemed to be Luigi’s, a cute little 7-table Italian place. The food was really legitimately Italian, and the the people running it were so friendly that we went back two nights in a row and ordered almost the exact same stuff. It’s great to find a diamond in the rough!

Jim does manage to brighten up the landscape

Our fellow hikers are often the four-legged variety

In case you are wondering, that pile or rocks is a “cairn” that we were watching for

Old buildings on the edge of the village of Grasmere

After some pretty taxing hiking to Grasmere, I just gave in to the high carb pub choices. But that Guiness tasted amazing!

Sometimes the other hikers pushed us off the road completely for a few minutes

Did I mention that I love taking pictures of these guys?

The gorgeous landscape

They looked sad when we closed the gate behind us without letting them through

A lovely old stone bridge (with someone soaking in the water!)

These guys were watching us intently while they kept chewing their food

An evening out on the town in Ambleside

The lovely waitress as Luigi’s asked if she could take a picture for us. That was nice, but the background is so plain…

…so I asked ChatGPT to add some fun wallpaper. Too bad she also kind of mangled our heads in the process!

Someone was watching us from under this tree

One last cute sheep!

York Minster looming over the bustling streets of the old town

Next up was another two-night stop, this one the city of York. I found it a little odd to see all the signs referencing “York” without a “New” in the front but you wouldn’t really confuse the two cities. And somehow it felt appropriate to come to this namesake town after visiting the original Cambridge just a few days ago.

Founded by the Romans in AD 71 at the confluence of the Ouse and Foss Rivers, the city has a bit of history behind it. Perhaps most important, Constantius I was serving as Emperor here – one of the original four Tetrarchs when Emperor Diocletian decided the empire was too big for one man to rule. When Constantius died in AD 306, the troops quickly proclaimed his son Constantine his successor. Constantine, of course, went on to overthrow the tetrarchy, become sole emperor, convert to Christianity, and relocate the capital of the empire from Rome to Constantinople. In other words, he was kind of a big deal.

Some of the medieval city walls are still standing

And a more recent big deal is Judy Dench, perhaps England’s greatest actress, who was born here. Sadly though we didn’t see her.

The main tourist attraction here is the Cathedral, known as the York Minster. Begun in 1220 explicitly to rival the cathedral in Canterbury, it wasn’t completed until 1472 and is today the second-largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe. Mark was here some 33 years ago and remembered it almost magically, the massive size and beautiful architecture. And after all these years and all the cathedrals that we’ve seen since then it still packs a pretty powerful punch.

Most impressive here are the enormous stained glass windows, some of which date back to the 12th century. The window on the east side of the church – furthest from the entrance – is the largest expanse of medieval stained glass in the world. Perhaps even more impressive are the 53-foot high windows known as the Five Sisters. Painted in a monochromatic gray, they are simply stunning, unlike anything I’d ever seen.

These windows blew me away

To go along with just wandering around the Minster, we took a “tour” up to the central tower. I call it a “tour” because even though it was advertised as such it was just an opportunity to climb the 275 steps to the top of the tower. Because there’s only one set of stairs and they are quite narrow tickets are sold for a specific time: everyone goes up together and then you come down before the next group starts. The views were nice but for me most fun was listening to the woman in front of me act like she was going to die climbing those 275 steps. It was quite the show.

Otherwise the stop included a bit of wandering around the old town, a nice run and a couple long walks along the River Ouse, some decent food, and even a little shopping. From here we’re off to Edinburgh so we’re leaving England for a couple weeks. I’ve never been to Scotland so this will be a big adventure for me!

Mark enjoying perfect weather and a pre-dinner cocktail in a lovely square. What’s not obvious in this picture is that there is a guy in back of him with a microphone and big speaker singing show tunes very loudly and very badly. Made the whole experience decidedly imperfect.

After touring the Minster and climbing the tower we sat in a little park to read while enjoying this view

The view from the top of the central tower

Flying buttresses seen while climbing to the top

Boats tied up along the River Ouse for miles outside the city

This statue of Queen Elizabeth – head of the Church of England, of course – was added to the front of the Minster in 1977 in honor of 25 years on the throne

Back inside the church

The massive East Window, depicting stories from the Book of Revelations

Enjoying an excellent Perfect Manhattan

After our first lunch Mark went in search of a haircut while I wandered around. And then I stumbled onto said haircut in action!