Wednesday, September 13, 2017

Keswick, England

I'm in the far north of England in an area called the Lake District. It's a large national park with lots of little towns dotting the landscape. It's all mountainy with lots of lakes, hence the name.

Today was just driving. It took about 6 hours to get here – mostly via Interstate-like highways. Part of the time was spent being lost, however, trying to get out of Ironbridge. I made a wrong turn and ended up on a road that was just wide enough for my car. The GPS seemed to think it would lead me to the main highway I needed. But, instead of a junction, the little track I was on passed about 40 feet over the highway. I turned around and, finally found my way out.

The town here is pretty much Victorian - from the 1800s. It was all mining and slate quarries and sheep farming until the Victorians got all interested in nature and the outdoors. Then, it became a tourist town on a lake. The hotel I'm in was built in 1875 and is typical of the area:





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Image
Wenesday, September 20, 2017 London, England So I had my second day out and, boy are my feet tired (again)! I spent the entire day – 7 hours in the British Museum, mostly on my feet, and probablyonly saw ¼ of it. The place is huge and full of stuff – and people. A bit about traveling around. I was advised to get an Oyster card and an app for the Underground (that's what they call their subway system here). The Oyster card is like a prepaid credit card that works in the main public transport systems here – Underground, trains and buses. For the Underground, you just put it against the turnstile on the way in and on the way out. You can top it up in any station at a ticket machine. It works great. I got an app for the phone that lets me put a starting and ending point in and it gives me the routes to take and which stations to change at. It's all very convenient. Now about the museum. It's huge! And crowded! Full of schoolkids and tou...
Read more
Another trip! When I got home from Africa last September, I realized that the trip had taught me how to do what I had always wanted to do - travel to Europe. So, there were decisions to make. The first was where. After a couple of months thought, I decided on England. I like history and they've got lots of it. Hopefully there wouldn't be much of a language problem. Next was when. After reading forums and travel sites, I decided on September. That's after the big tourist season of July and August and before the weather turns really rainy in November. The itinerary was next. After searching around, I found a bare bones one on Rick Steve's website. He has been writing travel guides for Europe for 30 years or more. His website had several for England, ranging from 1 to 3 weeks. I chose the 3 week one and , after a minor change, settled on this: Sept 2 – Leave Denver Sept 3 - Arrive in London – train to Bath Sept 4 – Explore Bath –...
Read more
Image
Thursday, September 21, 2017 London, England Today was a travel day, sort of. I wanted to make sure how to get to the airport on Saturday and which terminal I needed to go to. Everybody said it's about an hour by the Underground and the online information about my flight said I needed to go to terminal 3. It turns out both were wrong. It took a little over an hour and a half to get there. When I got to terminal 3, the board said Ibera Airlines checking was in terminal 5. After getting to Terminal 5, I found where to check in. The evening before, I was talking to the barista in the hotel coffee shop, a young lady from Romania, and she said her favorite place to go in London was the National Art Gallery. My guide book highly recommended it, so that's where I spent the afternoon. It was well worth it. The Leicester (pronounced lester) Square underground station is on the edge of the theatre district. You pop out among all these tiny the...
Read more