Britain Travel WrapUp

Northern England and Scotland, on a budget but home with an emptier wallet

I've been a negligent travel blogger. I actually started this wrapup of our week a bit in Britain at the Sheraton Skyline at Heathrow Airport, but I didn't get a chance to finish -- but now I am. We took full advantage of the flexibility of our BritRail passes. Our only pre-planned time was in the Lake District, and after that, we tried to go where the rain wasn't. This was easy call, because it rained and rained and rained in most of the British Isles during our time. We had lots of clouds and a few sprinkles and one true sunny day in Edinburgh.

Here's where we went and what we did -- some of which I have posted here or on my Nordic Walking blog and on my food/dining blog:

Windermere/Lake District - April 23 (afternoon) to April 26 (morning)

Walked private trail on property belonging the the Famous Wild Boar Hotel.
Hiked from Ambleside to Troutbeck over a mountain called Wansfell with extremely limited bus service from Troutbeck to the highway at Troutbeck Bridge, we walk an additional 2 1/2 miles down a lovely country road to catch the bus back to Windermere, from where we walked an additional 1 1/2 miles or so back to Bowness.
In the process, explored the towns of Windermere and Bowness -- and a bit of Ambleside.


Carlisle - April 26 (afternoon) to April 28 (morning)

Guild Hall
Tullie House Museum & Art Gallery
Carlisle Cathedral - evensong rehearsal in progress when we visited
Hiked along Hadrian's Wall


Edinburgh - April 28 (afternon) to April 30 (morning)

Edinburgh Castle, including the Honours of Scotland (Scottish crown jewels), National War Museum, the Royal Scots Regimental Museum and
Museum on the Mound (Royal Bank of Scotland museum)
National Museum of Scotland
St. Giles Cathedral
City Art Centre
Ad hoc sightseeing bus ride (public bus, not tourist bus) that including a good look at the Royal Yacht Britannia, albeit from a distance
Sir Walter Scott monument and
The Royal Mile

We spent the last night at an airport hotel, the four-star Sheraton Skyline, which we booked at a good rate via priceline.com ($125 plus assorted taxes and fees). This American-style hotel is complete with expansive lobby, conference facility, swimming pool in a covered atrium, over-priced restaurant and somewhat less overpriced sports bar -- from which we watched Liverpool and Chelsea duke it out to face Manchester United in the upcoming European Football Championship. The Sheraton was the only hotel we stayed at that did not include breakfast. The add-ons: 24 hours of Internet service for £15 (that's almost $30) and airport shuttle for £4 per person (£8 for the two of us -- or more than $15.

Bottom line is that our trip was more expen$ive than we had anticipated. We tried to be thrifty, but due to the dismal state of the dollar, even thrift was not enough. We had a fine time and saw a lot that neither of us had seen before. We're glad we went, but we'll have to think out our destinations more carefully until the dollar begins to rebound against other currencies.