Mary & Peter's 2013 Trip to Europe: Ohh, the Scottish and English Countryside

We collected our hire car (2-door Holden Astor) from a lovely Scottish lass on Thursday morning and managed to get out of Edinburgh with only one back-track needed. We decided to take the scenic route to the Lakes district in Cumbria, avoiding motorways so that we could enjoy the countryside. On Craig Ritchie's (travel agent) advice, we went via Lauder, Melrose, Jedburgh and what excellent advice it was. the scenery was amazing.

Our first stop was at Lauder for coffee. The Flat Cat Gallery & coffee shop was a delightful little place in a small village. We both liked a number of their paintings, particularly by artists Jean Laing and Astgrid Trugg. Having had our caffeine fix we were ready for the road. Although we had our GPS, we didn't have a map of any kind (not the best planning) but the roads were well sign posted.

Viaduct

We were toodling along and noticed a beautiful bridge just off the road. We pulled over and found another little gem of a bridge hidden below the road where some men were angling in a private stream.

Angler's bridge

Angler's in the Scottish countryside

Jedburgh Abbey

Next stop was Jedburgh where we dropped into the Tourist centre and bought a road atlas of the UK and Ireland (better late than ever). The tourist guy was very helpful and suggested we take the road along Hadrian's Wall (unfortunately I didn't take any pics of the wall). The wall itself, which runs for over 100 kms, isn't that startling but the countryside was beautiful (more of that later). The Abbey above, which is right in the middle of the village, was built in the middle ages. It was a very impressive ruin which, considering its age, was in very good condition. We had toasted paninis for lunch at a little cafe run by an American before hitting the road.

Us with Scotland in the background

We stopped at the Scotland-England border and got chatting to a nice man who was carting timber to be made into furniture. He chatted to us for a few minutes before offering to take a pic of us. Although a little chilly it was a clear and mostly sunny day.

We continued on until we turned off towards Hedrian's wall. This drive was breathtaking and we agreed that the Edinburgh - the Lakes drive definitely matched the best of Ireland.

Little paddock near Carlisle

We kept ooing and aahing and wowing - the fact that the weather was perfect for driving probably helped.

We had our first "extremely tense moment" with the driver not being particularly happy with the navigator. We ended up on the motor way (which we wanted to avoid) but luckily we were still headed in the right direction and the silence in the car only lasted 10 mins or so.

We arrived in the little village of Ambleside about 5pm. Our B & B/guest house was very central and luckily we're living out of one bag as we were on the top floor with no elevator (1800's house). We strolled around the village which had very narrow and windy streeets, a little similar to Kinsale in Ireland. We had dinner at a nice little restaurant that did a special 'early dinner'. This has been quite common across the UK where, if you order your meal by 7 or 7.30pm, it is cheaper than later on. I tried the pate which was nice but didn't match the superb one I had in Galway, followed by salmon (sound familiar?) Peter tried the game pie for main and found it interestly tastey.

We woke to a very misty and dull day but this didn't discourage us from going on a 2.5 hour walk to a nearby village, via the lake. Although it seemed to threaten to rain all day, it didn't. Before we headed off we dropped into a cafe for coffee and got talking to Pierre, who had lived in the area for 25 years (I actually didn't pick up any French accent). Peter will fill you in on Pierre later. This photo of the church steeple was taken from the cafe window (the next morning when the sky had cleared):

Ambleside

Being Saturday, there were heaps of people (all seemed to be English) out walking, particularly with their dogs. I had to take another photo of a sheep - it must be in the blood (Peter is quite amused how I keep being drawn to the different sheep):