For the first time in 2017, we went on a trip with Ankita & Shane Barb & Bert from 22 Nelson Street. We had grand plans of a “spring is here” weekend in the Lake District (which we think is the most picturesque place in England). However the weather dampened our hopes, literally! Only in the last 3 hours of the trip did we see the sun. Nevertheless, the weekend was a lot of fun (including an awesome home cooked meal Barb & Bert made) and we did “dry” activities while taking nature walks when possible. Hope this post helps folk stuck with wet weather in this part of England.
Top tip: Focus on the indoors attractions and drinks of all types if stuck with rainy weather. Dove cottage (William Wordsworth’s home), afternoon tea at Baldry’s Tearoom Grasmere & Hawkshead Brewery at Staveley are our top picks.

The only spot of sunshine at the very end of our trip at Staveley

Staying dry & drinking tea at Grasmere

The signs of Lake District’s spring

Won’t be the Lake District without the multiple lakes
Walking in the footsteps of literary giants
We visited attractions related to two stalwarts of English literature – William Wordsworth & Beatrix Potter. William Wordsworth spent his 8 most productive years in the village of Grasmere and is also buried here. After checking out his grave and the adjoining daffodil garden, we walked towards Dove Cottage where he lived with his family for those 8 years.

William Wordsworth’s grave with spring daffodils

The village of Grasmere – close to where Wordsworth’s buried
Visiting Dove Cottage was quite a nice experience. We saw many of Wordsworth’s personal effects as well as portraits of his “bro”s who visited the cottage, Samuel Taylor Coleridge being the most prominent. As per our tour guide, we may have physically seen the couch referred to in the poem “Daffodils” (pictured below). The cottage also has a very nice garden with a view of the Grasmere lake.

Dove Cottage

THE couch used by William Wordsworth

Wordsworth wrote from a patio with this view
Finally, we took off 20 years off our age to visit the World of Beatrix Potter which is definitely one for the kids to visit. It consists mostly of models depicting the famous children’s stories written by her and we thought we might have parted with our money without a good reason. BUT one of the very last room had 2 awesome things, an interactive touch surface showing the different Lake District locations associated with her as well as a full-sized tile puzzle. The 3 nerdiest of us got their thinking caps on and set ourselves to the task at hand while Ankita watched incredulously. It was fun and made up the price of admission. 😛

We’re proud(?) of this
Take a couple of (dry) nature walks
As mentioned in our previous Lake District writeup, Dalek found the north of Lake District very attractive so he got the other 3 up early to take the long bus ride all the way to Seatoller. The hope was to take a walk to the hamlet of Seawaithe in good weather to reach the base of England’s highest peak, Scafell Pike. Unfortunately, our luck with the weather was just horrid and the beautiful landscape was obscured by the rain. However, we saw a good number of hikers taking that bus meaning it has to be a beautiful place in better weather.

Gorgeous landscape marred by the rain

The animals seem to be less bothered
We had better luck at the town of Ambleside with a full 20 minutes of no rain. This was the best part of our outdoors exploration and also gave us some of our best pictures. Ambleside is a very picturesque town and we highly recommend visiting it.

Our latest “post” covers Ambleside park

Inside Ambleside catholic church

Yay for dry spells

North Lake Windermere shot at Ambleside

Funny park bench
Beer! The secret to a good holiday
You might imagine that the weather had made us write off our trip but we spent our only 3 sunny hours making memories indoors at the Hawkshead Brewery. Absolutely no regrets, in fact it was one of the best parts of the trip. The brewery is located at the picturesque & easy to reach village of Staveley (part of the Windermere – Oxenholme line). They have over a dozen beers on tap and the quality was really nice. We drank our usual stouts, porter and IPAs and they’re all good. We also enjoyed the pub grub (battered haggis!!).

Dark beer fans
Getting in and around
- We took Virgin Trains to reach Oxenholme Lake District before connecting to the Northern service for Kendal (our AirBnb’s location, highly recommended for 4 people). The Northern train also took us to Staveley and connects to Virgin services seamlessly. Checkout our UK transportation guide for tips on how to save on train tickets.
- We followed our other post on seeing “The real lake district by bus” to cover a lot of the other places we visited. The optimal ticket for us this time was the Group NW Explorer costing £30 for up to 5 adults (we were 4, still cheaper at £7.50 per person vs £10.80 for a single pass).
- We had to take a taxi from Kendal to Bowness from Lakeside taxis (01539 239 239) who have an attractive flat fare of £20 (vs £24 on the meter).
One of the buses (with wifi+charging) we took over the weekend
© 2017 Beyond Our Horizons
Wonderful place!
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Thanks Ester, we agree it is a wonderful place to visit. Just a touch of good weather would’ve gone a long way!
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I understand, it would help..
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The after-rain pictures have this relaxing and refreshing effect. I ❤ it! 🙂
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Thank you Joanne!! 🙂 ❤ That is some consolation for what was a much-lighter travel weekend than what we’d hoped for. On the plus side, we have a reason to visit again 🙂
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What a shame your weather was so terrible! Hopefully you can put another visit in the diary for when it’s a bit drier…
We really need to explore more of the Lake District, went up there for a couple of years ago (for a wedding that didn’t happen…long story) but I’m afraid we spent quite a lot of time in the bar in our Glenridding hotel…
😀
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Lake District on a good day is definitely the most scenic part of England which one half of us got to see last summer. It was a shame to round up the other half and friends to depressing weather like this. And contrast that with the brilliant weekend we just had!
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I’m heading up to the Lake District this weekend and have my fingers crossed for good weather. Love the tips and photos you’ve put together!
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Hey Angela, we hope you have some good weather on your trip, it is bound to be better than what we faced 🙂 Thank you for taking the time to read & comment!!
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Love Lake District. I ma trying to go couple times a year for a good hike 🙂
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Yeah, beautiful place for a hike though we’re personally biased towards Scotland. Lake District’s the most dramatic part of England, that’s for sure
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