London to Windermere. May 15

Travel day, our first big trip apart from getting to London of course. We stayed up late the previous night basically hair drying and ironing all our washing dry, just to get up early the next morning to get it all ready to go. We caught a train from Kensal Green (our local station) via the overground to London Euston. The overground is a good choice for us because the only steps we had to take was to get our bags down to the platform at Kensal Green, then it was all one level from there! At Euston we caught an approximately 4 hour train to the Lakes district general train station and then a quick 20 minute train to Windermere. Overall the travel was very easy, made easier by our supreme pre booking skills, managing to get seats with both power points (very few had these), windows, and luggage racks directly behind us. Go us! 

Arriving in Windermere it was quick walk through the town to our accommodation, a very cute bed and breakfast. Most of Windermere is just bed and breakfasts and somehow we managed to book on the busiest weekend, as on Sunday the Windermere marathon is on. So traffic into the town was craazzzzyyy. We are staying in the top floor of the BnB, which was just a dream for us to get our suitcases up the three flights of narrow stairs (feels like a million flights though).

Our cosy B&B

One of the people who works here told us on arrival that there was this walk to a lookout over the lake and town and maybe we should try that today. We were totally confused on where the entry was to the path and spent maybe 20 minutes wandering around, being like, I think it's this way, oh nope that's a car park. Finally we headed up the hill and we were both just dying, not of exhaustion, of happiness and idyllicness. Like this place is crazy beautiful and we both are just living an episode of Escape to the Country. We possibly have referenced that show 5000 times while being here. We kept thinking we'd reached the lookout because every time we turned around there was another stunning view or picturesque field encompassed in a perfect stone fence. Once we actually reached the lookout we understood why it was the lookout. You could see basically the whole lake. We also managed to get a rare duo photo. After many many photos, we walked our way back down to civilisation and to a pub. 

Dripping moss heaven 

Elise building a stone wall

Ash attempting to fly

Ash thought higher ground would help

Windermere views

Elise also trying to fly

Ash Grylls in the wilderness

IS THAT FAVRE?

FAVRE'S BROTHER MAYBE?!

Ash being a deer

Elise saw a deer! (Ash)

Snapchatting

Ash found a tiny pineycone

Love at first sight

Elise runs to the finish line

Elise wins

Duo photo #4?

The view (finally)

We both ordered a yummy steak and ale pie with mash and peas and enjoyed the pub vibes in cold, rainy weather. 

After dinner we took a stroll in the rain to Bowness on Windermere, the extension of Windermere which is on the actual lake, to a really quaint, old movie cinema. We fittingly saw 'A Royal Night Out'. It was only ourselves and two other foreign girls in the cinema, which allowed us to spread our wet coats all over the seats in front of us.  It was actually very funny because there were 30 minutes of adds, not previews, before the movie started and then a quick intermission?! Once the movie started it was pretty nice to be cosy inside watching a very British film in a very British place. We walked back to our place in the drizzle then got into our cozy bed to prepare our legs for a day of walking tomorrow.

Love always, A&E.

Notting Hill. May 14

Today we got up to go try and visit the Portobello Road Market, hoping that although it wasn’t a Saturday, the market would still be on. Unfortunately, after braving the wet and cold, there was no market to be seen, so we decided to have a look at the colourful houses in the area and find a couple of sites from the film named after the area. We found William’s (Hugh Grant’s character) blue front door, and also the bookstore that was once the Travel Bookshop. The store that was actually in the film was on Portobello road so it turns out they used an Antique store for filming the frontage shots. The store we went to did exist but was simply inspiration for the bookshop that William owns.

Due to the cold, rain and lack of famous market, we headed home, picking up some Lasagne and arancini to eat back at the apartment. The rest of the evening we spent packing for our journey to Windermere the next morning, which involved some last minute washing (and blow drying) of clothes. We had a late night. 

The pastel houses in Notting Hill

A section of Portobello Road

The bookshop that was inspiration for the movie

Love A&E

Bath. May 13

After our amazing night at the theatre, we thought we'd try and make the week even better by going to Bath. We were both sooooo excited to go, and Ash was mainly very excited to see the circular street of houses (more details to come).

The weather, amirite.

V studious, v navigation

Again it was an easy trip by train, we are both very impressed by the trains here and how easy it is to get everywhere. We walked into the main part of the Bath and headed straight to the Roman baths. Included in the entry was an audio tour, which we both had a bit of fun with. There were some cool artefacts like lead tablets, on which the civilians would write down anything/one that was annoying them and throw them into the baths to pray to Minerva, Goddess of the baths, to basically get revenge. We thought this is a pretty cool system and maybe hoped we could also have a magic bath to throw in notes about everyone who drives us crazy haha. We also spent much time getting many, many photos of us next to the baths, like the best tourists ever. As you'll see in the pics, there was also this weird guy dressed up as a priest wandering around, so we made it our task to get him in as many photos as possible. Ash also became the best photographer ever and took heaps of pics of people posing (and of Elise too). Our audio tour ended with Ash's handheld audio guide giving up on life and beeping very loudly constantly and us dropping it off and running away, leaving everyone else to deal with the noise.

Sass queen on her phone/audio guide

Sass queen 2 on her phone/audio guide

Spot the weird priest guy (ie guy in white robe)

Duo photo 3

Ash's stranger posing pic #1

Ash's awkward photograher pic #1/ old women can't take photos

Ash's stranger posing pic #2

Sneaky Priesty #2

Awkward photographer #2

Ash's stranger posing pic #3

Ash's stranger posing pic #4

After leaving the Baths we walked around the town taking in all the cute shops and the incredible archee-tetch-cha. But actually it was the best ever and also the most consistent style of all the towns we've seen. We had lunch in a small cafe, the food was delish, and then headed out to find the round street. 

Ash had seen this round street on maybe Escape to the Country once and was determined to find it. It was the main reason she wanted to go to Bath. Elise was like whaaatt are you talking about. But once we found it (by stalking a walking tour group), boy were we happy. IT WAS THE BEST STREET EVER. Maybe a little overexcited but it was so cool. You'll see by the photos how excited Ash was. Apparently Johnny "I don't care about customs declarations" Depp lives in one of the houses, as well as NICOLAS CAGE GUYZ ! and other rich folk. (Also the street was called The Circus).

THE ROUND STREET (ash so cool)

STILL OBSESSED WITH ROUND STREET

AGAIN

MUCH WOW

Elise's 'can we leave yet?' face

After Ash recovered from this, we stalked the walking tour over to Royal Crescent. Another set of curve houses which overlooked a beautiful grassy park. We actually ended up bathing in the glorious sunshine for close to two hours, having the best day ever. So we could maximise the sunshine, we went over to the supermarket and got some dip and bread to take back as a picnic and then headed to Victoria Park. We managed to get a picnic spot in prime view of the setting up and letting go of two hot air balloons. It was very cool seeing this happen and enthralled us for over an hour.

Royal Crescent 

Elise + shirtless tanning babes/are they babes?

Ash ignoring Elise

The first ballon

Balloon one lift off and two being filled

'Woah balloons'- Ash

As the daylight was waning we headed into town to explore properly and also take many pics. We went to the Bath Abbey, which had a function on inside, but we snuck in a quick look. We then got some delicious ice cream and sat by the river taking it all in until about 9.30pm (it was still light out!) when we caught our train home to London.

Ash's stranger posing pic #5 (plus very focussed Elise)

Are those eyes faithful?

Because is one ever enough?

Lots of love, A&E.