Lake District England in One Day.. the most scenic place in England

me and my Kiddo @ Waterfront on Ambleside

Lake District is supposedly the most beautiful destination in England and listed as one of those 100 places which you need to visit before you Die. We decided to give 1 Day to Lake District in our itinerary (rather half a day) - we went there on the way from Manchester to Edinburgh.

Lake District is famous for Lakes, Mountains and natural beauty. There are total 10 Lakes, the largest one is Windermere. There are multiple tours available "10 Lakes tour" etc. but we wanted to explore ourselves, so we decided to do Windermere for our day trip.

Sailboats on the Windermere Lake

How to Go:
Lake district is connected by train to the rest of England through Oxenholme Lake District Station. This is mid-day from Manchester to Edinburgh.
Manchester to Oxenholme Lake District station : 1 hour
There are trains every hour. This would be the national rail express.
From here you take a northern train to other parts of Lake district.

Oxenholme to Windermere : 30 Mins
The journey from Oxenholme Lake District to Windermere is considered to be one of the most scenic routes in England. The train passes through the villages of Kendal, Burneside and Staveley and the scenery is worth watching.

Sitting my the Lake.. Silence and Breeze

What to do in Windermere:
This a very cute town with a small station, information center and some walking trails nearby. As we got down, we walked to the information center, which is 5 mins walk, there a signboards to help you out.
We kept our luggage there in a locker - they have a facility available which charges 7 Pounds for a half day. There is a lady who provided information about where to go, along with the map of the place and also sold Cruise tickets.
We kept our bag, and also got Cruise tickets for Windermere lake.

Windermere lake is located on a town called  "Bowness-On-Windermere" which is a 20 mins walk from Windermere. We had a small kid, so we decided to take a bus ticket.

Bus from Windermere to "Bowness" - The Stagecoach599 bus runs every 20 mins, and costs 2.4 Pounds per person - This is an open-top bus, so if the weather is fine, its a nice short journey from Windermere Station to Bowness

On the Cruise

Cruise : There are 2 Cruises on the Lake - Red Cruise and Yellow Cruise, the Information center lady will offer all information and also sell tickets. We went for the Red Cruise which is a roundtrip journey to a nearby village Ambleside. You can get down on Ambleside, spend good time and then come back whenever the next cruise is available.
Cost - 11.30 Pounds per person

The Lake is beautiful with blue waters, and mountains surrounding it. I watched a lot of sailboats and people having a good time.
Ambleside is a small beautiful town with amazing greenery - there is a Roman Fort (ruins of an old fort) which can be seen here. This is a 5 mins walk from the waterfront.
There are some restaurants over the lake, and it was amazing to eat traditional fish and chips sitting by the lake and enjoying the chilly breeze.
 

There are other things to do Windermere, there is a beautiful walking trail called Orrest Head which is an easy 20 mins walk and the views of the lake from this viewpoint are breath-taking. We skipped it as we had to catch our return train.

For those staying in Windermere overnight, we saw "Windermere Hotel" which is just outside the station and looked good.


We left Manchester in the morning at 8.30 and reached Windermere station at around 11 Am. This was a connecting train from Preston Lancs. We booked our ticket on Trainline.
After reaching Windermere, we went to information center, dumped our bags, got the cruise tickets and boarded the bus to Bowness.

Bowness-On-Windermere is the lake front - the lake is beautiful, clean with lots of big and small ducks and sailboats. We boarded the cruise at 12.20 and reached Ambleside in 30 mins or so.
Ambleside is a gorgeous place, with green spaces as far as we could see. We went to the roman fort and to the park nearby. Took some great pictures and sat by the lake.
After enjoying some local food, we decided to board the cruise back at around 3PM. Reached Windermere, collected our bags and boarded the train to Edinburgh via Oxenholme to continue our journey into Scotland as per our Itinerary.
Some links about Lake District - Official Site, Attractions in Lake District, Tripadvisor Places for Lake District

P.S = All pictures are original and taken from my Nikkon5300 DSLR.

 

Some more posts from my England / Scotland trip of interest