The hotel we stayed in in Morecambe was the Strathmore Hotel. It was extremely dog friendly and right across the street from the dog friendly beach! It is also within walking distance to the main part of Morecambe where there is a great selection of restaurants and other things.
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| Flood wall |
The other great thing about this hotel is that it is a half hour drive to the Lake District and, in the other direction, a half hour drive to the part of Yorkshire that we love! So I believe we will return to this hotel a few times!
Our plans were to visit the Lake District and take as long as we liked since we are going home a day early. But things did not go to plan! After breakfast at McDonald's (!), we drove to Windermere. We knew it would be crowded but the amount of crowding took us by surprise anyway. There was no place to park in Windermere! We did stop at the garden centre in Ambleside, which is always great fun! But we could not use this space to visit the rest of Ambleside.
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| The replica of the little house in Ambleside. This was at the garden centre! |
There is a little house there that sits over the water and we like to stop there, and there is a fabulous coffee shop there and we were really looking forward to a repeat of the apple pie we got the last time we were there..... The parking lot we depend on was totally full, and we circled it 3 times in a vain effort to spend some time in Ambleside.
So, on to Grasmere. This is our favourite Lake District village and we have spent the most time here, so we expected to bank on our local knowledge and find a place to park. Well, we did! But it was only a spot for one hour. And we were extremely lucky to find it. So we grabbed that one hour with both hands and made the most of it.
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| The queue never moved! |
Another thing we really enjoy is the famous Grasmere Gingerbread, sold at a darling little shop just outside St Oswald's church. That did not happen either. The queue for this local delicacy was way too long to spend the better part of our precious hour. Alan did try to wait it out. I stood in the queue while he visited the church. Then we traded Skye and I visited the church....he has barely moved. So I convinced him we needed to give up the idea of getting the gingerbread.
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| Always only been in my photos from the church side, until today! |
We then enjoyed a wander around this darling village and then stopped at the coffee shop that I always take a photo of when we visit St Oswald's! I never actually expected to be sat out on the balcony that overlooks the stream that goes by, but this was my lucky day. We shared an apple pie and carrot cake. Skye just enjoyed being there.
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| St Oswald's church across the water |
Here are some random photos taken in Grasmere in the very short time we had:
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| This was a hotel in the late 80s. We stayed upstairs where those 3 windows are with Mom and Bob. We all loved this hotel, when it was a hotel. |
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| I love all the buildings in Grasmere! |
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| I wonder what language has been hidden |
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| Inside St Oswald's |
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| Just walking around Grasmere |
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| Skye made a hit where ever we were |
On the way to our car, we got a meal deal from the Co-op and then took our car out of that precious parking spot and headed back to Scotland.
And there is no place like home, it felt great to get home a day or two early. It is nice to travel without an itinerary or definite plans and this is the first time it did not work out, but the rest of the trip was tremendous and I am delighted we got to do this.
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