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Ambleside 2023 - Exploring Windemere (Day 1)

 

We decided to celebrate our first wedding anniversary with a little trip away. We didn’t want to go away on our actual anniversary as this was during the Easter school holidays, and this was a good decision as, although it was fairly busy around, it would have been a lot worse a week later. For our holiday, we thought it was a good idea to not venture too far from home as we seem to do a lot of travelling for holidays, but still we managed to go somewhere that neither of us have even been on holiday – the Lake District.

We started our holiday by driving to Bowness-on-Windermere, with our sights set on a trip on Windemere. We made sure that we could do this by booking in advance with Windermere Lake Cruises for their first cruise of the day. This company provides you options of either going on a round trip to just enjoy the sights, or getting off and on at various places across the lake. We opted for the Yellow Cruise, which takes you from Bowness down to the southern tip of the lake and back again, offering some spectacular views.




Once our cruise was finished, we headed to The World of Beatrix Potter Attraction in Bowness, across from Rayrigg Road car park, where we were easily able to find a space that was in walking distance to everywhere we wanted to be. We started off with some lunch in the small café at the attraction, which offers a range of toasties, sandwiches, soups and cakes at a reasonable price. We can definitely say that the toasties are delicious and make it worth a stop. We then enjoyed the exhibition, which depicts the stories of Beatrix Potter, and gives you an insight into the inspiration for the characters and story lines. The characters, costumes and sets you see are exquisitely made and help bring to life the well-loved stories. No visit would be complete to this attraction without heading into the gift shop. We managed to find a number of items to purchase, which included two books of some of the classic stories, a Peter Rabbit colouring book and children’s story book, and some plant pots and accessories that feature the characters.








Once we’d spent far too much money in the gift shop, we went for an obligatory holiday ice cream. Usually we are one of many enjoying this treat, but on this occasion we did get a lot of strange looks as, by the time we had purchased our ice creams it started hammering it down with rain. Not quite ice cream weather, but that doesn’t ever put us off! The ice cream was from Windermere Ice Cream, which is a small shop down towards the cruise terminal, and has a huge array of flavours to choose from.

Despite the heavy rain, Nicole had come across a walk she fancied whilst we were in Bowness and was determined to make me walk it. The walk was to Orrest Head, which, on a clear and dry day, would offer breathtaking views across Windermere. The footpath up to Orrest Head wasn’t the easiest to find and there were several steep sections, however there are options of easier walking routes if preferred. We were just drenched so wanted to get to the top and back as quickly as possible.




Once we’d made it back to the car after walking for about 2 hours in solid rain, we were desperate to get to our accommodation. We had come across a B & B online called Rothay Garth, which was in the middle of Ambleside. This offered a double en-suite room and breakfast for an affordable price. We had originally looked for an AirBnB as we usually like the option of catering for ourselves, however the cost of these in the Lake District did not seem justifiable and, in the end, we were very pleased with our choice.

For dinner, we walked a few minutes along to the Flying Fleece, which is a casual dining pub next to The Bridge House in Ambleside. I really wanted to make sure I had a proper Cumberland sausage whilst in the Lake District, therefore I opted for the Cumberland sausage and mash, whilst Nicole had a chickpea burger and fries. I then followed this with a portion of sticky toffee pudding and Nicole had an apple crumble, something that we often make at home yet this version was heavenly and worth every penny.

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