Lake District and Keswick

We left Wales today and stopped outside of Conwy to visit the Bodnant Garden which was founded in 1874 and developed by 5 generations of one family. They still live there today, but it is a National Trust property now. We lucked out with fantastic weather and gardens filled with spring blooms in the many terraces, woodlands, and meadows. It is truly one of my all time favorite botanical gardens. It was hard to capture the expanse of the gardens and colors.

After our visit we returned to England and headed to the Lake District in the north part of England…4 hour bus ride.We’re staying in the small town of Keswick with a population of 5,000. The Lake District is filled with valleys, hills, and mountains. The environment changes again and the houses are built out of slate in this region. It has a greenish cast to it. We stopped at a truck stop where there was KFC, Starbucks, Burger King, Krispy Kreme, and Subway…LOL!
I think I’m going to love this area. This is the area of poets and writers. Among them were Beatrix Potter and William Wordsworth. The view from my window is magnificent! The hotels in Europe don’t usually have elevators. I’ve been lucky with only having to drag myself and my luggage up to the 2nd floor…today it was the 3rd floor!

We ended the day at a traditional English chippy and had fish and chips…a first for me. The most important thing for all of us at this point is to get up and walk to the laundry to drop off our clothes by 8:00 tomorrow morning!

It is truly taking hours to download photos and I’m still waiting for about 20 more to download. Internet service has been really poor. I may add some more as more download, so check this footprint again tomorrow. All photos are from Bodnant Gardens.Read more