The Lakes District was the last stop on our 15 day tour of England and Scotland and one that I was pretty excited about.  While I had been once before, I had never spent time exploring quite like this trip as we never had the luxury of a vehicle.  Not that a car is a must – you can easily take a scenic boat ride across the lakes to visit some of the villages and there are always touring companies for hire that will take you on day trips of the Lakes District’s highlights–and there are many.  This trip, however, I had the lovely Wendy May driving us from one end of the UK to the other with a sense of adventure to match my own.  As a base in the Lakes District, we stayed in the beautiful village of Windermere at the Hawksmoor Guest House — a wonderful B&B and a favorite of our whole trip (you can read Wendy’s glowing review on TripAdvisor here http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g186330-d617247-r177022503-Hawksmoor_Lakeland_Guesthouse-Windermere_Lake_District_Cumbria_England.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT).  Anyhow, I could have easily written a post about each and every village, lake, and waterfall we visited but, for the most part, they would read about the same as each one was better than the last.  I would have to say that Windermere was a great place to call home while there and seemed to have just a bit more to offer in the way of shopping and eating but the other villages were definitely worthy of a look see – we visited Ullswater, Ambleside, Grasmere, and Glenridding….some by car and some by boat.

 

We also drove the Kirkstone Pass with it’s amazing views and made a stop at Aira Force; the Lakes District’s most famous waterfall.  There is so much to see and do in “The Lakes”, as the locals call it, that you could easily spend a week or more there.  We had only a couple of days but made the absolute most of it.