Wales and the Lakes District

So we took the chunnel from Paris to London, pretty much just to say that we rode a train underneath the English Channel! We arrived in London at St Pancras station, walked a few blocks to Euston station in central London to pick up our rental car. After we finally found the car rental place (a tiny shack hidden in a corner on a random floor of the parking garage) we picked up our car. We had asked for the cheapest car we could get that came in an automatic. We were expecting a tiny Nissan Micra like we had in Ireland but they pulled up in a Mercedes…yikes! I told Drew that he was absolutely not able to get in any accidents with this rental because we definitely couldn’t afford the replacement fees on a Mercedes!! So we headed off on our grand adventure up to Scotland but first we had to make our way through rush hour traffic in London at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday! After two hours of driving and only getting lost twice we were finally out of London. We drove to Bath, found a place to park and walked around the city. It was late by the time we got there and everything was closed so we just admired it from the outside. We went to the Bath cathedral which was absolutely amazing from the outside and I’m sure just as beautiful inside. We also went to the Roman baths, the oldest and most intact baths in all of Britain. Our original plan was to spend the night in Bath, spend some time seeing the sties in the morning and then head on to Wales but we were feeling pretty tired from our week of non-stop traveling so we decided to shorten our journey a little by continuing on to Wales that same evening. We entered Wales, drove through the capital city of Cardiff and then, about a half hour outside of the city found a rest stop, parked and ‘slept’ for the evening. The car was freezing so it wasn’t the most comfortable night of sleep but it was better than nothing. At about 6:00 a.m. the next morning we got back on the road and continued on our way up through Wales. It was still about four hours until anything opened so we just enjoyed the scenery, driving up through a national park. Once businesses started opening we found a gas station, spent fifteen minutes trying to figure out how to open the gas tank and bought ourselves a UK roadmap. We drove through the rest of Wales, enjoying the northwest corner of the country where you drive out of Wales and into England, then back into Wales a few miles later, then back into England a few miles later, back to Wales, and then, finally, back in England for good.

Once we were in England we headed straight for the Lakes District. It was about midday at this point and was turning out to be a really nice day. Lots of people had really recommended that we go to the Lake District which is why we planned it as part of our trip. Thankfully it completely lived up to the hype and was the perfect end to our trip. We made plenty of stops to do some short hiking in the hills; we went to Beatrix Potter’s house and an ancient stone circle. The roads were extremely narrow and there were plenty of parts where we had to pull to the side of the road so another car could pass. After spending our entire afternoon in the Lakes District, soaking up the beautiful scenery, we continued on our way back up to Scotland. Just south of the Scottish border we stopped at Hadrian’s wall…the ancient northern border of the Roman empire. Even though the wall was very hard to find it was really cool when we finally made it there. It is neat to think about how long the wall has been standing there and to think about exactly what it represents.

We arrived back in Dalkeith late on Saturday night and went immediately to bed. After a good night’s rest in a real bed we took our Mercedes and drove to the coast in North Berwick. We spent some time climbing out on the rocks and just enjoying the sea. I never get tired of spending time on the coast and I think living in such close proximity to the coast will be one of the things I will miss the most about living here.