Tuesday, September 4, 2012

Wordsworth




We started out today to see Beatrix Potter's home, but found that we needed to take a ferry across Lake Windermere to reach it. That would be okay except that my inquires of those locals in the car line told me the ferry only took 6 cars at a time; we were number 21 with no ferry in sight after a 10 minute wait. Instead, we opted to go to our second agenda item, Dove Cottage, home of William Wordsworth. Wordsworth lived in the cottage in Grasmere for 8 years. His sister, wife, sister-in-law, 3 children, S. T. Coleridge and another minor writer all lived in the 5 room cottage at one time. Wordsworth had seen the area when he was 14 and declared it paradise. It had always been his desire to return. It was here that he purportedly wrote his best poems. There was a very nice museum attached with many original writings and paintings of his contemporaries.
From Grasmere we drove to Keswick. It was a very hairy but stunning drive on a 6'6" road along the edge of the lake. At times the mountainside was to the other side of us; covered with huge ferns and cedars, it reminded me of northern California. The lushness and the green were tangible. Keswick was a bit more charming that Windermere. But still no really nice galleries or antique shops. We had a pub lunch and returned to Cragwood for some R&R.More photos at Flickr.