Windermere + Cartmel

And with a last day driving around Windermere and Cartmel we said goodbye to the lakes. We stopped by the Windermere pier, visited the nearby village of Troutbeck (very nice views of lake Windermere from our way up), and had lunch in Cartmel before heading to Manchester to catch our flight home.

Cartmel was a last minute surprise. It turned out to be a very charismatic village, with lovely pubs and nice (and original) shops. There's also Cartmel Priory, founded in the 12th century by none other than the famous William Marshall (if you're an historical fiction fan like me, you undoubtedly heard of him before, particularly from Elizabeth Chadwick's books). Cartmel is also the home of sticky toffee pudding, it even has a Michelin star restaurant, and the best village shop I've ever encountered.

All photos of this trip to the Lake District at Flickr.

:: at the pier

:: Views of lake windermere from Troutbeck

:: The home of sticky toffee

:: Cartmel Village Shop

:: From the window of a second hand bookshop in Cartmel - how very true :-)

:: Cartmel Priory

:: The priory had a really nice children's area, which Sara  loved. I think it's the first time I've seen this inside a church.

Loughrigg Fell

This day didn't start out so well (toddler major tantrum), and the weather was turning very cloudy and rainy (very usual in the Lakes, but we were spoiled from a week of almost perfect weather), so we decided to finish our frist trip to the Lake District with a hike to Loughrigg Fell, near Grasmere. It's another easy walk, which offers stunning views of Grasmere and Rydal Water.

Much later that day we went for dinner at another great restaurant in the area - the Jumble Room, in Grasmere - where we had what was probably our best meal of this trip.

Catbells + Tarn Hows

Another day in the Lakes which turned out to be a great hiking day. We decided to hike the popular Catbells summit near Keswick. It is a very easy hike, but it takes a bit longer than we originally thought. It took us about 3 hours to reach the highest Catbells peak and hike back.

Being one of the most popular hikes, and with very few parking spaces nearby it's good to arrive early in the morning. We decided to make the ascent from Hawes End, and took the shortest way up to the lower peak following a steep path. The lower summit was reached quickly (and would've been even quicker if we hadn't stopped to take photos every 5 minutes, but with views like this it was impossible not to).

Summit photo !

Making our way down ...

I think we successfully turned S. into a little hiker.

Later we visited Keswick again, and had some delicious pastries from Baldry's ...

And took pictures of the pinkest Fudge shop ever

In the afternoon we decided to drive back to Coniston, and hike to another popular spot - Tarn Hows, the artificial tarn that Beatrix Potter left to the National Trust. The hike is very easy from the small parking place near Yew Tree Tarn, just outside Coniston.

We were lucky that it wasn't very crowded, and it's very easy to see why it attracts so many people.

And finally, the perfect end to this perfect day - a dinner at the famous Drunken Duck gastro-pub.

Yew Tree Tarn

This breathtaking tarn was 5 minutes away from Coniston and we passed by it several times a day. When the water was still the view was nothing short of spectacular ...
from Wikipedia: A tarn (or corrie loch) is a mountain lake or pool, formed in a cirque excavated by a glacier. It is formed when either rain or river water fills the cirque