Lake District, Glasgow – Day 5

I was a little disappointed today with the trip. The Lake District is supposedly some of the most gorgeous land in England and it looked like Door County in Wisconsin.

Maybe it was just me, but I saw nothing special in the little train ride on a coal engine, nor did I see anything special in a boat ride from the train to where the bus picked us up (which was about halfway up the lake). The train was dirty with worn out seats and the coal produced an unpleasant scent. Had I known, I wouldn’t have purchased this optional excursion.

We were on Lake Windemere (or Lach Windemere) and it has some beautiful houses along the shore, just like we do back home. Granted, we don’t have sheep grazing on the slopes, just cows (no, really, there are lots of cows in Door County and in Wisconsin in general). We also have people kayaking and sail-boating. The weather was nice though, and I sat to a really pleasant Scottish couple on the boat. They were on a little holiday after a friend’s 50th wedding anniversary.  Made the boat ride quite pleasant.

I guess the highlight of the day was when we got to see the gravestone for William Wordsworth (the one on the left, the others are the graves of his kids).   It would have been good had our tour guide told us something about him and his family.  And, I think this was the only time I had a sit-down lunch during the whole trip, for a leisurely 15 minutes (LOL) and it was fairly expensive for what I got (another pasty).  But at least I wasn’t eating on the bus.

Scotsman at Greatna Green

We also saw a smithy where people used to elope to in order to get married if their parents didn’t approve. This too was another shopping stop, by the way. Ugh.  But….. The coolest thing, by far, was meeting this bag piper.  We were in a shop (as always) and I asked him if I could take a picture of him.  He was so pleasant, and readily agreed.  So we stepped outside the shop and I snapped off a couple pics.  I wonder if he’s the bag piper for the weddings.  They still have weddings at Greatna Green, but it’s about 10 pounds to go see the little room and I chose not to do it.

Glasgow Center Square

Today we also arrived in Glasgow. I didn’t have any specific expectations about the city, but our only stop in the city was for about 15 minutes around the main city square to take photos of statues that are anointed with bird droppings. That particular square houses numerous statues to famous people and is the meeting place for the local population. But the thing that really struck me was how dirty and dingy it was. Perhaps it’s the remnants of the industrial revolution, but it looked rather depressing and decidedly working class. The city has some old buildings but many of the buildings we saw I’d place as having been built within the last 80 years with most having the feel of being built in the 60s.

Glasgow Hotel

Oh, and our hotel was “cozy”, as the tour guide put it. That means the room was only as long as the bed plus the door. The bathroom was decent though, lots of light. But there was very little water pressure and the water was luke-warm. But it was enough to shower.  Oh, and the faucet was mixed (as in one spigot for hot and cold water which you can control through handles as opposed to separate spigots for hot and cold water).