Windemere, England
Sunday, September 15 – Woke up in London. A day later and a different locale than planned, but the sun was out, and I missed my morning run yesterday, so I headed out. A brisk 50 degrees, but I warmed up quickly.
Nice little breakfast room at the hotel, with a view of the park and made to order breakfast options.
Walked to a little church about a mile from the hotel for Mass. Basic little neighborhood church, not a lot of visitors, perfect as far as I was concerned.
Packed up our gear and headed for the train station. Trip started out fine, a little crowded, but on time and a comfortable, smooth ride. Too good to be true…
Yep, just before arriving at our first stop, I got an email that our 20-minute connection train had been canceled. Decided not to wait for more than an hour for the next one and got a cab…though that took a bit of work as well. Great driver, we told him about New England and he told us about Latvia.
Once we arrived, however, all was forgiven as we are in a beautiful spot in a lovely old manor house. We popped into the hotel bar and waited for Gail and Jeff, folks we met last year on our Bulgaria tour who invited us to join them on this hiking adventure. It was, of course, great to see them and we picked up right where we left off a year ago.
Looking forward to a fun week among the hills and lakes!
14,683 steps; 7.9 miles
InnTravel:
https://www.inntravel.co.uk/walking-holidays/uk/lake-district
Now that we are in the Lakes District, we are part of an “InnTravel Walking Holiday” which we booked in advance. It covers all the hotel reservations, transfer of luggage between locations and some meals. We arrived a day earlier than the start of the tour to get situated and make for a relaxed start — for this evening, we paid for the room.
Hotel: Merewood Country House & Restaurant
https://www.lakedistrictcountryhotels.co.uk/merewood-hotel
Church:
https://parish.rcdow.org.uk/copenhagenstreet/
Trains: Avanti West Coast:
https://www.avantiwestcoast.co.uk
We bought on line in advance “Off Peak” tickets which run at specific times but are less expensive and we weren’t really interested in traveling during rush hour. They are also refundable/changeable which came in very handy for us. Also have seat reservations which makes it a touch less chaotic when boarding.
No real sightseeing today, though my jog and half hour walk to church provided a nice view of the section of London near our hotel.
Breakfast:
Nice breakfast offered at the hotel, a number of cold items, plus a waitress for ordering hot items, up to and including “the Full English” if you so desired.
Lunch:
Stopped by a sandwich shop at Euston station and picked up some lunch for the train ride. Nothing terribly exciting, but they were freshly made which always helps.
Dinner:
Dinner at the “The Grill” dining room of the hotel — the hotel itself is situated up a long driveway and away from the town and none of us had any interest in trying to find a restuarant. While technically more a pub menu rather than a restaurant, it had more than enough options for us.
Doing all the rearranging of tickets and hotels was annoying, but fortunately in today’s day and age, it can all be done via a phone which was extremely helpful.
Thanks to European Union rules, we are owed some significant payments from British Airways for the delay, which hopefully will cover the cost of our lost hotel reservation and missed airport transfer.
As we had to take expensive cab ride due to canceled train, I will be pursuing a refund for that as well.
Despite all that, the new hotel is delightful, the sun is shining and we start our hiking adventures tomorrow!