Greg and Deb's Travel Blog

We started early today, after cleansing sulphur assisted showers, we figured we were ready for anything! Seriously, the water here at our hotel has a strong sulphur aroma to it. Something to do with the volcanic ground water here at our hotel!

When we opened the curtains this morning we were greeted with a view of clouds rolling down the distant mountains. They looked like an avalanche captured in time, as beautiful as amazing.

We were picked up from our hotel and taken to get our hire car, and were on the road by 9am heading to the iconic Icelandic Golden Circle, featuring the 3 most visited tourist sites near Reykjavik. It drizzled on and off for most of the morning, but nothing too serious, and the afternoon was dry. A good start for our first day driving on the wrong (righthand) side of the road. Our theme for the day seemed to be, “Keep right, Keep right!” and “Not so far right!”, but we made it through our first day with both of us driving.

Happy 61st birthday Greg, how lucky spending it here.  After birthday cards, messages and phone calls we headed out on a two hour city walk tour of Reykjavik.   What we enjoyed most was our guide Sara.  She is a formidable 39 year old, History Masters, teacher.   She embodied everything I have read about Icelandic women, strong, fierce, intelligent and no bullshit. Sara also had a good sense of humour.   They bring their children up to, Think like a Viking.  You can achieve what you want.  There is a lot to like here.  

We were all packed and in a taxi to the airport on time at 10am. Pity our flight wasn’t on time.

Deb got a message saying it was now leaving at 13:30 rather than the 12:55 scheduled time. By the time we got to the airport that had gone out to 14:12.
We were near the end of a long line at check in and got talking to a man who was going fishing on the west coast of Iceland. He said Iceland had been in drought for several months. He was hoping for rain to fill the rivers!

We had a little dilemma today, Manchester is about 90 mins away from Cartmel, we can’t check in at our accommodation until 3pm, so we looked around for things to do in the morning. Cate, our host, suggested we visit Sizergh Castle and Gardens. She said it was very good so we decided to go and have a look.

We had a quiet sort of day today in the lead up to a few days of traveling.

We took a drive north to the small lakeside village of Coniston. The village is set on the north west edge of Estwaite Water. It’s a small village with a lot of recent history.

We had a lovely breakfast this morning all on our own, in a beautiful conservatory overlooking the garden.  We feel like we are staying with a crazy aunt.  Cate is delightful, the house is a little ramshackle in places, but only adds to the charm.  The house has a really good feel about it.  

We left Keswick a bit before 9am this morning and headed south, exploring as we went.

Our first stop was on the southern side of Windermere, we got a good park on the side of the main road just past the Windermere Hotel. From there we took a walk up to Orrest Head Viewpoint. It was a nice walk up a well maintained path to the top of a high hill. It took around 30 mins, walking up through magnificent woods. We are still looking for the very elusive native red squirrel, they are out there somewhere.

After our big effort yesterday we decided on an easier day today taking in many of the main towns/villages/hamlets of The northern Lakes District.

After breakfast we set out and walked into Keswick, about a mile away. It has rained a little overnight and the ground was fresh and clean, but the clouds were hanging around. We took the opportunity and had a look through all the stalls at the Keswick Market that was set up in the mall either side of the Visitors Information Centre. The Info Centre is in Moot Hall, a building that looks like a church, but has never been used as one, built in 1571 & again in 1813, it has been used as a town hall, a prison, a courthouse, a museum and a fruit market. The clock in its tower is unusual in that it is a one handed clock! One handed clocks were produced between 1650 and 1700, they were so inaccurate that it was pointless putting a minute hand on them. It was a typical street market with a bit of this and a bit of that, food, clothing, arts and quirky stuff. Always interesting to browse through.