.: A journey to Lake District :.

Friday afternoon I was more than ready for the weekend, specially because we were going to celebrate our anniversary in Lake District. I even managed to stop working really early (16h!!!) but…

If you live in London and if you drive then you will know that Friday + Rain are never a good combination, never! We didn’t even managed to get into the M4 which is literally less than 0.5 away from home, so just to get out of London it took us forever. M40 was pretty smooth but while reaching Birmingham the chaos started. There was a massive accident on the M42, which meant that we couldn’t take the faster route and instead we had to go around adding 1 extra hour into our journey. It felt the journey was taking forever… As we finally reached the lakes, it was pretty dark and we could barely see anything outside. We managed to reach the hotel around 22h30 – which means 06h30 when it should take 04h30!

But wait… there’s more. It started to rain cats & dogs and we had no umbrella… we were parked around 500 yards from the hotel, a short walk, but not ideal while it was raining that much. So after 06h30 we’ve waited another 30m in the car for the rain to slow down!

Tip to self: If you leave in the UK always (I mean it, always!) carry an umbrella 😐

Fortunately the guys at the hotel had given us very precise details on how to reach our keys from the safe locker and get into our room, as there was no one available to meet us at the house at that point in the evening. Thanks for that! At least something went well 🙂

I couldn’t believe when I finally got into our room:

Such a comfy bed waiting for us!

It was really easy to fall asleep, but being that I’m still with a cold I woke up lots of times to cof… yap…. but at least it was weekend!

Elm Tree Lodge

So let’s talk about the hotel. As you know, I’m quite a fan of boutique hotels having had really amazing experiences so far and in the lakes there are not that many “big chain hotels” so it was the perfect opportunity to stay at a lovely boutique hotel. B&B are the way to go on the lakes. After a bit of investigation I found the Elm Tree Lodge on Booking.com. Once you get indoors, the first thing you notice is that it feels you are visiting a friend’s house. The room itself was quite cosy but lovely decorated. Loved the wallpaper which matches the chandelier

The other thing I’ve noticed was the guestbook where you normally find all information you need, but in this case it was quite unique and it felt more like the family’s etiquette:

• If your shoes are dirty please take them off at the entrance – taking into account people walk along the lakes and do trekking, this is a very likely scenario;
• Breakfast is served from 08h15 to 08h45 – so it’s not a very long window, but again if you were visiting family / friends this would be the same scenario;
• Please don’t take your mobile with you, leave texts and calls to once you’re back in the room

These were the ones I remembered, but once we went next morning for breakfast everything made sense. The dining area it’s a cosy family room with a big table so everyone will be sitting together. It encourages socializing, after all we’re on holiday so it should be easy right?

Once we’ve got in there was only 1 lady there and we ended up discussing how terrible the journey had been next day. For her it took her 8h from London – gosh, at least ours wasn’t that bad! Then we were joining by 2 young guys who were going to climb the mountain in Keswick. We feel now very inclined to do the same next year 🙂

The host was really really friendly and welcoming! He treated us really well over breakfast, which was so delicious!! Coffee was really tasty (yes, even I’m saying coffee is tasty!)  and the sausage? So good! We left breakfast with a big smile on our face and a promise of an amazing day exploring the lakes 🙂

More photos from the hotel (sourced from the official website)