Ambleside: A Walk Up Loughrigg Fell

by Miss Penny Black

Everyone was happy for me to lead the way today so I suggested a walk up Loughrigg Fell, which is one of the closest and smallest fells near Ambleside.

We were up and out just before 10am, all well-rested and full of energy. It’s so nice to have a kitchen and be able to have a small breakfast. The place we are staying at only has one teaspoon though so we have to take it in turns to use it… and no toilet roll holders, which is also kind of weird.

We walked across the park and over the bridge to the bottom of the hill.

Up a steep road then over a stile.

There were swathes of bluebells, which are hard to photograph but stunning in real life.

Within half an hour we had made it up the first section to Todd Crag, which had beautiful views over Ambleside and Windermere.

The top of Loughrigg is undulating so we walked up and down a bit and even did a tiny bit of scrambling (walking but having to use your hands where it’s steep). We saw a deer and I saw a hawk.

Some of the tarns had completely dried up but the larger ones remained.

We took lots of breaks to enjoy the views.

We had a chat to a fellow who was enjoying a quiet walk while his wife was at her 75th school reunion in Ambleside. We later passed him and his wife in town and told her we hoped she’d had a lovely time!

After wandering on the southern half of the fell, and everyone feeling fine, I suggested we walk up the higher part of the fell to the north as I recalled there being good views of the Langdales from the other side.

This is the part of the day where I stopped taking so many photos because the path was distinctly more hilly and rocky than I’d recalled. Everyone else was extremely patient and put in a top effort and we got up the steep and gravelly slopes with a few rest stops.

We also saw the fighter jets again from this side! We’d seen a tiny moment of them from Ambleside yesterday but had a much better view today.

I don’t like slippery gravel at all, especially downhill, so I used the OS map app to navigate us down some grassy goat tracks on the far side and back to the main path. It was a bit hairy but I think, in the end, that it was a better way to go and no one complained at all. Champions!

Once we got down to the wide track it was an easy walk down back into Ambleside.

Next stop:

For some:

The sun was out, along with every man, woman, child and dog in town. After lunch we had a wander around town and a look in the Oxfam store.

I bought this book, I hope to use it to my advantage.

Then we discovered that Lea hadn’t tried Jaffa cakes so it was home for tea and biscuits!

(Or cake, depending on how you view them)

We learned our lesson from last night and booked a table booked at The Flying Fleece for dinner.

I had curry and everyone else had a gigantic Cumberland sausage and a mountain of mashed potato. A satisfying end to a big day!

16May2023

Ambleside Day 2: Family Reunited!

by Miss Penny Black

After a fabulous sleep in a king-sized bed, Luke and I awoke ready to enjoy the wonders of the Lake District and to catch the bus to Windermere to meet Luke’s parents, Lea and Pete, at the Windermere train station.

The smiles are a lie. It was freezing and I was deeply regretted not bringing my coat.

We caught the open-topped bus from Ambleside to Windermere and had a wander around Booths while we waited. It is a large and fancy supermarket where everything looks perfect and fresh and the labels are all very English and cute, it’s a bit like walking around an art gallery. Also there are no decent supermarkets in Ambleside so we picked out a few things to buy later before we caught the bus back.

Close to the time the train arrived, we went to the station, which is right next door to the supermarket. Precisely on time, the train pulled in.

I had several potential plans for the afternoon and we settled on the following:

Then up to Orrest Head, one of the best bang-for-buck walks in the area and it starts right by the train station.

The view from the top was fantastic but is hard to show in a photo, so here’s one of us instead:-)

On the way down we found the Gruffalo! We also saw some fat native bumblebees and robins bobbing around the undergrowth.

Then a tour of Booths to buy supplies..

Then onto the bus to Ambleside!

Followed by relaxing in our lovely apartment, eating cheese, drinking wine and sharing travel stories.

In the evening we took a short walked to bridge house, which had already featured in the blog at least once, many years ago. It is the most photographed building in the Lake District and used to house a family with six children. It was built across the beck to avoid land taxes.

We had a drink outside one of the pubs then bought some pizzas from the little local supermarket to heat up at home. We were all in bed by 10!

16May2023

Reunited!

by Miss Penny Black

I’d like to say we looked this happy when we woke up in the morning in our tiny shoebox hotel room, but neither of us got enough sleep and so we struggled out of bed and over to Euston station. Along with an average breakfast sandwich, I had what I hope was the worst coffee of my life, because if anything worse is ahead of me I might avoid coffee forever.

I like how people with bags on wheels take up twice the space of one person and they always seem to walk right in the middle of any walkway.

Our train was, and I am not exaggerating, 16 carriages long and we were in furthest one.

The train was on time and we enjoyed watching the scenery roll past and catching up with each other’s lives since we were last together.

We spotted lots of bluebells from the train, so lovely!

We got into Windermere on time just before lunch and dropped our bags at the information centre so we could go for a walk around town and use up the time before check in.

We had some coffee while chasing up the address details for our accommodation in Keswick then went for a walk down towards Bowness.

It’s been a real trend for people to crochet letterbox decorations for the coronation.

We found a beautiful pub for lunch.

Then walked to a little lookout through some quiet woods.

Lovely weather!

Eventually we got our bags out of storage and caught the bus to Ambleside. Our Airbnb was right in the centre of town in a little alleyway called ‘The Slack’.

By the time we got into the apartment we were more exhausted than we’d been in a long, long time. After almost falling asleep a number of times we decided to go out for groceries and then to the nearest pub.

We walked into the Ambleside Inn and everyone was watching football so we asked who was playing and who we should barrack for (Liverpool against Leeds, the crowd was fairly split on who to support). We bought a drink each and went into the upstairs bit. We ended up talking to a local guy who told us basically his life story and all about the area. He and his friend gave us a recommendation for a pub on the last leg of our LD trip (the Kirkstile Inn) and I showed him my fell pony photos. We ended up hugging him goodbye and he wished us a lovely holiday. Delightful!

Finally we fell into bed for a long and dreamless sleep, the best we’d had in several nights!

10May2023

Porto Day 3

by Miss Penny Black

First, a big hello to Kathy, Danny’s mother, who has been reading the blog and I’ve been shouting ‘HELLO’ to from the background most mornings while Danny is on the phone. Looking forward to meeting you again when we get to Ireland!

After staying up until 1am watching Ted Lasso (using our holiday time wisely, I know) we decided to have a lie in. Our only planned activity of the day wasn’t until 12:30.

To get across to the port house side of the river we walked down, down, down to the water level and crossed the lower level of Porto’s iconic bridge.

This was our first proper trip over to this side and it provided an excellent view of the side we were staying on. Hills might be an effort to navigate but hilly cities are much more scenic.

If we had thought the other side of the city was busy, this side was heaving – and on a Monday.

We had booked an Airbnb port and cheese experience but we were a bit early so we went for a wander. We saw a famous rabbit.

And a tower painted all around with beautiful flowers.

I had booked the port and cheese tasting experience at a port house called Quevedo, through Airbnb experiences. It was only $30 and came with a talk on port and the history of the port house.

I am 90% certain that it was one of the same port houses luke and I visited last time we were here but the cheese was a nice addition and I got to refresh my knowledge of port.

We both agreed the white port was our favourite. I don’t think it’s available to Australia but I might try bringing some home from the uk.

For the rest of the afternoon we wandered around and sat a few different places. The first did a port and chocolate pairing.

The chocolates were excellent and locally produced.

After all the chocolate and cheese what I obviously needed was a large lunch. We found an Italian restaurant in a nice laneway and I ordered carbonara and Danny had pizza. But first they brought out tiny perfect little garlic breads.

Obviously we needed a litre of sangria too.

It was an absolutely stunning carbonara, served in a bowl that was lava-hot, but I realised halfway through that I had severely overestimated my capacity. I ate it all and refused to learn any kind of lesson from my experience.

One thing Danny observed as we sat there was that not a single table in Spain or Portugal had been the slightest bit wobbly. At home about half of tables require extensive chocking with coasters or wadded-up serviettes, yet here they seem to have no problem setting up a table on a cobblestone street with a 20 degree slope.

We had a drink on the waterfront and listened to a busker for a while, then caught the cable car up to the top of the hill.

We went back to a little bar we had visited two nights previously. It was by a bus stop and looked like the kind of place frequented by locals. Six drinks and a bowl of chips were 24 euros – and the gin and tonics here are at least double the size of ones at home.

One the way home we crossed the top of the bridge and managed to be right on time for an absolutely spectacular sunset.

After an afternoon of drinking and an early morning start, I went to bed early and made the most of our last night in our lovely apartment.

8May2023

Porto Day 2

by Miss Penny Black

Thanks to Danny booking our accommodation in an epic location, we are really close to almost everything in Porto.

Our apartment is in that white building, behind it is the main cathedral and town square and it’s right beside the biggest bridge across the river.

We had an excellent sleep then I found a very Melbourne-style cafe for breakfast, but at about half the price of a Melbourne brunch.

Near us was a large table of people of various ages who were all spread out using various devices and tapping away. We thought they were all working independently. Just before we left they all stopped typing and started introducing themselves and talking about poetry. We tried to overhear when was going on but it was a bit mysterious.

Next stop: stained glass museum! As you can imagine, one of us was more excited about this that the other.

Danny wasn’t terribly keen, but it was only eight euros and literally backed onto our accommodation so if he wanted to go sit it out he could.

A nice surprise when we paid…

Art and port, a winning combination! Sure, it was 11am but it would have been rude to refuse.

The museum is very small but had some nice stained glass.

Next, a quick break at the apartment to charge devices and do some puzzles with our feet up. I hadn’t known previously that we were both fans of word puzzles and this book I bought in Australia has been great entertainment.

Then we went for a walk and had a snack break with a view.

It was kind of a brioche-pizza-calzone mashup.

We wanted to do a bit of shopping today. We walked to a mall for a look around and I bought a book. Shopping centres really are the same all over the world.

I was very grateful that the mall bookshop had a couple of shelves of books in English and even a decent selection of fantasy and sci fi.

We went on a walk around town to see street art and other lovely sights.

I found a nice middle-aged-lady fashion store and bought a dress to wear if we go out to somewhere nice for dinner. While in the shop I met a couple of Kiwis who had been living in Mount Martha for the last ten years. it’s (relatively) just down the road from where I live so it seemed like quite a coincidence.

Next we walked through some markets where I bought strawberries. the strawberries we’ve had here have been really great.

Danny has been wanting some open shoes that would be more comfortable with his blisters.

Despite my encouragement he didn’t even try on this pair of fake-diamond-encrusted trainers (rude) and went for some Birkenstocks.

We made it to 10km and decided to have an afternoon rest and watch some Rick and Morty, during which Danny feel asleep and I started my book.

I’m coming to realise that this isn’t my most riveting blog entry but I’ve written too much to stop now!

Porto is a VERY hilly city and the walk to our restaurant for the evening was quite an ordeal. Worth it though, for views towards the sunset and feeling like we’d found a place where locals hang out.

I’d been reading up on local street artists and there was some work right by our spot.

Subtle but beautiful. Hazul luzer, a local artist.

We walked back to the apartment to get our laundry at 9pm. It turned out that the nearest laundromat was halfway back to the restaurant. Up and down hills again.

In the very new and clean laundromat we got talking to a couple from Melbourne and a couple from Turkey. We all agreed that the laundromat was the place to be on Monday nights.