Lake District

The Lake District is in Cumbria in northwest England, not far from the border between England and Scotland. It has the reputation of being the most beautiful area of the country (quite justified as we discovered) so we embarked on a five hour drive on the M6 and A591. Once off the M6, the journey was absolutely beautiful, driving through a valley adjacent to lakes and green hills. The A591 is curvy but a good road, marred only by tour buses. This region is well supplied with stone. There are stone walls everywhere dividing the fields and most of the houses are of the local stone. Sheep are everywhere and we soon found that we had to be constantly watching where we stepped. Soon after leaving the M6, we stopped into a custom furniture maker's facility and watched them hand crafting some very beautiful furniture.

Our destination was Keswick (pronounced Kessick) which means "cheese market". Graphite mines were discovered near here and the modern pencil was invented in Keswick. Artists will recognize the Derwent brand name (the lake is Derwent Water); they produce fine quality colored pencils, water color pencils and pastels. We stayed in a Victorian B&B named the Ellergill Guest House where Robin and Claire (and dog Tess) are delightful hosts. We asked our hostess for a recommendation for dinner and she pointed us to the Dog and Goon; it took some conversation to get past her accent and realize it is the Dog and Gun.

Before dinner, we walked around town. Keswick is quite small and, although it is oriented towards tourists, it lacks the junky-feeling souvenir stores of many tourist areas. This region is oriented towards serious hikers and the stores reflect this. It has the feel of a ski village in the Sierras; people walking around in their hiking clothes looking quite rugged. More casual tourists (non-hikers, or those who prefer to see the scenery through a bus window) visit the southern part of the district; this northern part isn't for them. Town was crowded, but not overly so. It'll get worse as the season progresses. Most of the buildings are of stone and were built in the Victorian period. This area became popular after train service became ubiquitous and access from London became easier.

Keswick has a pencil museum! And it's quite interesting; presenting the history of the pencil and the processes used in mass producing this essential tool. Of course, there's the obligatory shop where Claire couldn't resist a small starter set of water color pencils.








We tried the Dog and Gun for dinner, but it was very crowded and they had no wait list; you had to run and grab an empty table. So we went to a less popular pub for an OK dinner.