The photos below are of the view we had from the window of our hotel room just outside Grasmere in the Lake District. I took these ones in the morning, but I was so annoyed when I looked out of it because when we arrived the night before it had been full of unusual grey fleeced sheep, and I didn’t take a photo of them as I thought the light wasn’t good enough.
I’m not great at getting to sleep when I’m away from home and I wasn’t helped by the sound of an owl hoo-oo-ooting. It must have been sitting on the roof directly above our bed, but it sounded like it was sitting on the bedhead, and it was one of those spooky sounding owls. It went on for quite a while only stopping now and again when I imagine it must have flown off on a hunting expedition, before alighting above us again. It was definitely a different experience.
Very early in the morning I had been woken up by some dogs barking outside and I did think in a woolly way that they must have been sheep dogs and my brain just didn’t click to the fact that they were rounding the sheep up, taking them to new pastures – I hope.
The view of across the road from the hotel is really quite different as you can see.
It’s much more mountainous although maybe I should say craggy as by Scottish standards these are really just hills. I love the stone built farm buildings they have in this area.
The Lake District does seem a bit like a mini Scotland – with loads more tourists. It’s not really that far from the ‘debatable lands’ of the Scottish Borders which were always being fought over.
I took some photos of the types of houses that are in Grasmere. The one below is so wonderfully craggy and solid looking and I’ve never seen chimney stacks like that before. This house is close to Dove Cottage.
In complete contrast whitewashed houses like the one below always seem quite fragile to me and remind me of iced cakes. I’ll be completely un-pc and say that as I often think of houses as having characters then the top craggy one is definitely male whilst the whitewashed one is veering towards femininity!
The burn/stream below edges the graveyard that the Wordsworths are buried in. I did take a photo of the lovely wee bridge over it but sadly it came out all blurred.
If you want to see more images of the village of Grasmere have a look here.
What a beautiful area.
Did you have gingerbread at Grasmere?
You were close to Beatrix Potter country there: I wonder if the sheep with the grey fleece were Herdwicks?
This might be the ‘feminine’ building: https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/allan-bank-and-grasmere/features/the-church-stile-shop-in-grasmere and, my goodness, the stone house with the chimney stacks looks solid.
Lovely clear beck – close to Swallows and Amazons country too!
Was ever a small area so much extolled in poetry and prose?
Valerie,
Yes that is exactly the building. By the time I took the photo it was really dark but I could see there was some sort of shop at one end. We drove past it in the daylight next day. Last time we were in the Lake District we tried to visit Hill Top, Beatrix Potter’s home but it was shut. I think maybe they have trouble getting volunteers sometimes, so we decided to give it a miss and go to Coniston which is famous for Swallows and Amazons and John Ruskin. I’ll post about that area soon.
How absolutely gorgeous. I would love to visit some day. Of course, I say that about so many of your travel posts.
Jennifer,
You’ll just have to give London a miss the next time!
Great photos, Katrina. I do like that craggy stone house. Does it look out over the lake? I’ve never seen chimney stacks like that either. We were in the Lake District decades ago, but I don’t remember much about it.
Joan,
I think that the windows from the upstairs of that craggy house will have a view of the lake, none of the houses are very close though which might be a good thing although I don’t think I’ve heard of much flooding around there.
The Grasmere photo that you have said is too blurry, I like a great deal. It’s very atmospheric. Lots of mist about, as we’ve had to deal with here for well over a week. The mist in Grasmere is beautiful, anyway.