Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Walking Holiday in the Lake District

I'm off for a 3 day self-guided walking holiday to the Lake District in England, described as one of the most beautiful places in the world by Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley and Bronte. The self-guided aspect of the trip is a bit frightening considering my horrible sense of direction, but there should be many other travellers/walkers this time of year and eventually I'll get to my destination inn/guest house by the end of the day. The distances range from 9 - 12 miles. I'd actually love to run most of this mileage, but I'll have to be checking my maps frequently in order to make sure I'm on the right path or at least heading in the right direction.

While most of the reviews of the guest houses where I'll be staying were okay/good, I did come upon these two that concern me:

"We spent 2 nights at this lovely little guest house ( it used to be a grammar school) and its winding corridors and steep staircases, - I bet the chambermaids are fit - and really enjoyed it. The room (8) was quite small but we did not have cat in need of swinging so was not an issue."

or even worse...

"The worst decision we have made, after being shown to our room/box via the very floral stairway we could not believe our eyes. The bedding was about the same age of the cottage and had many stains and human hairs on it, the carpet was stained and worn and very unclean."

I may need to upgrade when I get there!

Here's another description of one of the houses where I'll be staying:

"In 1961 the house and its grounds were bequeathed to the Society of Friends (Quakers) to be held in trust and used as a place for Quakers and others to come for purposes of religious worship, for rest, for convalescence after illness and for other activities of a charitable nature."

I'm assuming that there won't be any sort of mini-fridge with a pinot grigio for me at the Quaker guest house, so I'm hoping there is a lovely tavern near by for some post-walk refreshments. I'll be humming " Tis the gift to be simple" on this leg of the trip!

2 comments:

Dennis said...

Looked adventurous! Seems like you saw some nice landscape, became confident in your map reading skills, and met some good people. I wish I could do that.
Off for a 3 day sailboat race in NY.

Nicole Orriƫns said...

That looks and sounds like such a wonderful trip! I would really like to that sometimes.

Wasn't it a bit scary though, all alone?

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