TravelStream™ news feed for member daviesuk on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/daviesuk en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:08:54 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/2/1216997700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/2/1216997700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/2/1216997700/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 11:08:54 -0400 Lake District 2008

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Keswick, England, United Kingdom

Up and out to Grasmere early, because it's always busy there. It's a pretty little village - Wordworth was extremely fortunate to live here (and he's buried in the church here, too.) The Gingerbread Shop (see picture) used to be the local school where Wordsworth, his sister and his wife all taught. The gingerbread is good, too!

Then on to Keswick - a lovely drive on a beautiful sunny day. We strolled the narrow streets and went in to all the craft shops, ending up down by Derwentwater - lovely.

Then back to the apartment to pack - home tomorrow! So this is the end of our Lake District travel blog........
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Kendal, United Kingdom

The hottest day of the summer so far - except here, where it's fairly sunny and warm.

Today we visited Kendal cemetery to put some flowers on Nana and Grandpa's grave and pay our respects. I had emailed the cemteries office yesterday to ask for directions to the plot, but hadn't heard back. We found it without too much difficulty, though.

Then we had a quick look at the house where they used to live at 38 Riverbank Road. The old gent next door arrived home when Mum was trying to peer over the hedge into the back garden, and allowed us into his back garden so she could have a better view. He'd only lived there for seven years, though.


After that we went for a drive to the coast, via Cartmel to Grange-over-Sands. We were going to drive up the coast via Broughton-In-Furness, but got to a T-junction to find a huge queue of traffic along the way we had intended to turn, so went the other way back to Ambleside instead, driving up the east side of Lake Windermere.


There we had a pub lunch at the WaterEdge Inn, just opposite our apartment. Scampi in a basket - very nice! Returning to the apartment, I founf an email from the Cemeteries Office with a little map including the plot marked, plus the following details:


Grave No. 146 Section B r/c:
Albert Edward SANCHEZ died 14th. April 1979 aged 78; Annie SANCHEZ died 19th. August 1996 aged 90.
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Windermere, England, United Kingdom

As expected. Monday morning was gloomy and grey, so we decided to go to Penrith, where there are some activities and craft centres which are indoors. We drove over the Kirkstone Pass - which would have been lovely except for the fact that over the top we were driving through thick fog and rain - and down through Patterdale past Ullswater. We stopped at a rather uninteresting craft gallery with a deserted air outside Penrith, and then on to Rheged, where we discovered we had missed the only daily showing of the history of Cumbria movie. However, there were lots of other things to look at there.

The sun shone briefly as we left, but had disappeared again by the time we reached Caldbeck, a tiny hamlet among the hills north of Skiddaw, and another very quiet and not very interesting craft centre, called the Wool Clip. The drive back to Ambleside, past Bassenthwaite and Kewsick, was very pleasant though.

Wednesday was supposed to be sunnier and warmer, so we walked down to the pier and caught the ferry to Bowness on Windermere, a journey of about 30 minutes. It was hot as we waited to cast off, but by the time we set sail, the sun had disappeared for the day. We had a Costa Coffee upon arrival, then walked the mile and a half up to Windermere town centre. After a wander round the shops we caught the bus back to Bowness pier, and another ferry home. The sky got gloomier and gloomier, as can be seen from the pictures, but we managed to make it home without getting wet!
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Ambleside, United Kingdom

Sunday was rather gloomy and damp. In the morning we strolled into Ambleside and back, which took about an hour. Later, we went to Hawkshead where we had lunch, then on to Blackwell, an Arts and Crafts house built in 1900 as a holiday home for a rich Manchester family.

The house is full of beautiful Art Nouveau textiles, features and artefacts, but we couldn't really appreciate the lovely setting on Lake Windermere due to the dismal weather.

Monday dawned sunny, though the forecast was for rain in the afternoon (which never arrived.) We drove to Sedbergh, a small town about 30 miles away in the Yorkshire Dales, and visited a heritage mill which was also a craft centre. The we went on to Hawes, another tiny market town where we had lunch in a tea-shop which was also a craft gallery! After a beautiful drive over the hills to Ingleton we returned to Ambleside via Kirby Lonsdale.

Tomorrow the weather is predicted as raining again, so we'll probably go to Rheged, as everything's inside there. The wirless internet's not working today on my laptop, so I don't know when I'll get a chance to upload this!
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Ambleside, England, United Kingdom

The drive from Chatham was uneventful, though the motorways were busier than normal as this is the day after most schools have broken up, and half the country is driving up the M6!

We arrived at the resort at 4pm, after lunch in the Tickled Trout, Preston (hideously expensive - four quid for a cup of tea!!) and shopping in Morrisons, Kendal.

Here are some pictures of the apartment and environs....
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208525820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208525820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208525820/tpod.html Fri, 18 Apr 2008 22:11:13 -0400 California, Nevada & Utah: Silver Wedding Anniversary

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Laguna Beach, California, United States

After a very lazy day yesterday in Las Vegas, visiting the Mandalay Bay, Luxor, Excalibur and Planet Hollywood and betting a whole $50 in total, today we drove back to Los Angeles.

It's a long drive - five hours - but luckily we were travelling against the traffic. Loads of Los Angelenos dash off to Las Vegas for the weekend on Friday, returning on Sunday night. Bit of a slog for Andy, and as we'd done it the other way a week ago, there wasn't anything new to see - just the Mohave Desert.

The hotel here in Laguna Beach is *right* on the oceanfront - a superb location. Laguna Beach is an artists' colony-type place - much more like the French or Italian Riviera than anything you would expect to find close to LA.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast for the next two days isn't great: overcast skies, and not terribly warm. We'll just have to keep our fingers crossed!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208264880/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208264880/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208264880/tpod.html Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:42:59 -0400 California, Nevada & Utah: Silver Wedding Anniversary

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Springdale, Utah, United States

Up early today (6am) for the long drive to Utah, in the third car we've had this vacation - a huge Escalade 4 x 4 ....... In case there's snow. It's extremely windy driving up the Interstate, through Nevada and Arizona to Utah.

During the journey, it becomes clear why Nevada decided it needed to be the gambling state, because there's not much else going for it. The landscape is stark and scrubby, not stark and stunning as in Arizona and Utah.

We stopped for brunch at Sullivan's Café in Cedar City, which I'd found on the internet, and then drove another hundred miles on smaller roads up mountains and through towering cliffs to Bryce Canyon.

Bryce is a National Park at 8,000 feet, where you are at the top of an escarpment looking down into a natural amphitheatre and across three states: Utah, Arizona and on a good day, New Mexico. The rock has been weathered into weird pointy columns called hoodoos.

It was very windy again, so not clear enough to see New Mexico, or the north rim of the Grand Canyon, but still spectacularly stunning. There was a tiny patch of snow on the road, so Andy drove through it several times, to the bemusement of a woman standing next to a campervan.......

One small concern - apparently the rodents and prairie-dogs here carry the bubonic plague - who knew?

After visiting all the viewing points here, we drove on down another hundred miles or so to Springdale, a small community located at the entrance to Zion National Park, where the spent the night in the fabulous Desert Pearl Inn, with its amazing fusion of Southwest and Scandinavian décor.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208352780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208352780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208352780/tpod.html Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:35:45 -0400 California, Nevada & Utah: Silver Wedding Anniversary

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Springdale, Utah, United States

This morning we rode the shuttle around Zion Canyon. Both Bryce and Zion (and the Grand Canyon and all the other Utah National Parks) are on the Colorado Plateau, a huge sheet of rock pushed up to 9000 feet many millions of years ago, and now cut through with canyons and gorges due to rivers and weathering.

Unlike Bryce, where you are on the top of the plateau looking down, here you travel along the bottom of the canyon looking up, due to the activity of the Virgin River (named after Mr Virgin, who explored it in the 19th century). The shuttle is used to keep cars out of the canyon - 5,000 plus per day, if it didn't exist. At the end of the canyon we walked along the Riverside Trail for a way, but although it was sunny, it was jolly COLD!!

After lunch at Zion Lodge, we returned to the car for the drive back to Las Vegas through more stunning scenery.

In Las Vegas we tracked down an outlet mall, to purchase trainers, which are much cheaper here than in the UK.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208178240/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208178240/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/daviesuk/1/1208178240/tpod.html Tue, 15 Apr 2008 02:18:37 -0400 California, Nevada & Utah: Silver Wedding Anniversary

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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

Today we went to Mount Charleston - a peak 40 miles north-east of Las Vegas, still snow-tipped in April. We tried to go in 2004, but access was closed due to forest fires. We lunched in the Lodge, at 8650 feet: I liked it, tho' Andy wasn't impressed!

On the return to Las Vegas we stopped at a couple of book stores, and then went to the Fashion Mall on The Strip. The joys of shopping!

Finally, we collected the gigantic Escalade from Hertz for the drive to Utah tomorrow!!
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Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

We're very lucky with the weather again - it's unseasonably HOT in Las Vegas at the moment! Took a stroll to the Strip and wandered through the Planet Hollywood shops, then over to Caesars (no apostrophe, apparently) Palace where we had lunch at Spago's.

We then caught the shuttle back to the resort and spent an hour by the pool.

Saw 'Spamalot' in the evening - very funny, and well-staged, including bits I couldn't imagine how they'd do, like the black knight who loses all his limbs, and the giant killer rabbit. Worth seeing!
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