Day 7, Lake District (in route to Edinburgh)

Day 7's Itinerary reads: Lake District/Scottish Evening.  Travel through the glorious Lake District, which inspired many of the Beatrix Potter's children's books.  Visit the village of Grasmere, where Wordsworth lived and is buried.  Pass through the village of Gretna Green as you cross the border into Scotland.  At your hotel, enjoy a lively Scottish evening with dinner and entertainment. (July 31-August 14 departures will have a free evening instead.) We did not have a Scottish Evening of entertainment, as our tour dates fell within the dates listed.

Fuzzy Brush coin operated machine was hanging on the wall just outside the restrooms, as we stopped for a coffee and potty break along the roadway.  I thought it so odd, different etc, that I took a picture.  Rest stops in Europe are so very different than our little rest stops here in the US.  We have restrooms, and sometimes a few vending machines with junk food (pop, crackers, candybars).  In Europe they have real food, multiple choices, coffee shops, little grocery stores even.  Much more full service.  So, I guess means of brushing your teeth, doing your laundry (which we saw in some cases), isn't surprising.

Thought I'd repost the map so you can see where we are, and where we're headed.  We left Chester and are making our way to Edinburgh where we'll spend 3 nights.

This is where we spotted the toothbrush machine.  This rest stop is very space age looking.  It stands 65 feet tall.  The idea, when it was built was to call attention to motorist because advertising wasn't permitted along the roadway.  Originally this was called Forton Services, because it's near Forton and Lancaster.  Later it was called Pennine Tower.

This photo was taken shortly after it was built.  Currently it's looking a bit shabby I thought.

Next stop Grasmere.  A very old grave yard beside a very old church.  Sadly we weren't able to see inside, as there was a service taking place since we were there on a Sunday morning.

Grasmere was a very pretty little village, though we had to dodge raindrops part of our time there.  We had fun in a few little shops, and had a lovely lunch of homemade sandwiches, chips, and a fabulous hot boozed coffee.

We didn't get the same thing, but I don't remember what we did have.  All was delicious.  We wanted a break from fish n chips, and wanted something a bit lighter; as we were to have a group dinner at our hotel this night.  The other highlight of this lunch stop was a very sweet young man who waited on us.  He was early teens, maybe 13-14 and was just such a gentlemen that we stopped to tell the owner what a wonderful job he was doing and how much we enjoyed his service.  It's one of the few places we left a sizeable tip.

Gretna Green wasn't much more than a potty stop, though there was a little shopping village here, and snacky food that we didn't need or buy, though some in our group were hungry again.  We're now official at the Scottish Boarder.

Our lodgings for the next 3 nights The Leonardo Royal Edinburgh Haymarket.  This   isn't my photo, but the one from their website.  It's a shame we spent 3 nights here, because it was quite worn down, not very clean.  With a name like royal, you would expect more for sure.  We were physical close to The Royal Mile, but not in what seemed a very nice area.  Having been to Edinburgh before where we were able to walk from The Castle to the Hotel.  Which you could here as well; but we were on the other side of the Castle this time and the area just wasn't as nice.

Since these are photo's from their webpage things look far nicer than they were.  Maybe once upon a time it looked like this.  We did not have nice tartans and decorative pillows on our beds.

Their specials, which did not appeal to us; but thought I'd share.

Day 7 Lake Maggiore Continued

Day 7 Lake Maggiore Continued.  In the previous post you saw pictures of The Church, and The Square.  Though these are quite faded, I thought it still nice that they exist.

I did photo graph all 13 stations, but will share just a few.

I spotted this in this square and photographed, so I could look it up later.  Giovanni was in an Alpine regiment, and was taken prisoner by The Germans/Nazi's.  He died in a prison camp and 73 years later he was repatriated here in Baveno, the place of his birth.  I believe the sign was to let people know the ceremony would be here the following Sat.  We were there on Sept 23rd, and the ceremony to honor him was the 29th of September.

**While this video is in Italian, you can see how pleased town folks were to honor him and his family.  He was awarded a medal.  It appears the ceremony took place in the little church we visited (please see previous post).

What a nice explore we had!

We met up with the tour group again in the lobby of the hotel at the appointed hour to disperse for dinner.  Menu's had been passed around the coach on our way to Lake Maggiore and folks selected where they wanted to dine (included meal), based on the 3 menu's.  

Our group was the largest of 3 groups, but I'm not sure based on the reports from each group about dinner we choose as well as the other 2 groups.  They had some outside tables, but our reservations took us indoors.

To a back room with no windows, and it was quite stuffy.  We did finally get them to turn on the fans.  We were sitting at one really long table which made it difficult to talk well with everyone.  It wasn't a great meal, but wasn't bad either.  We had a really good time with our group.  But the reports from the other 2 groups...sounded like their meals might have been better.  One was there at the hotel and they said they had so many courses they couldn't eat it all (ours wasn't that filling), the other group sat outside on a very pretty patio and said it was such a nice evening and such good food.  Some in our group made their selection of this location because it served rabbit.  We selected it because it had Tiramisu for desert, lol.

Returned to our rooms and sat on our patio's.  Several of us were next door to each other.  Had a night cap while we watch fireworks!  They were fantastic out over the water.  Tomorrow up early, and back on the coach making our way to Venice with a stop in Verona.