England 2: London

St. Pancras, London: arriving in Euston Station from Penrith, Lake District, we walk a few blocks to our hotel, which overlooks the British Library and behind it, the soaring Victorian railway station. 

The British Museum: the airy Great Court, new since our last visit, provides a nice contrast, much like Louvre's Pyramid. This gem makes our short list  even though we have a limited amount of time in London, especially for the non-gastronomic component.

The British Museum: past the always awe-inspiring Rosetta Stone that guards the extensive Egyptian collection, we pause in front of the large statue of Ramesses II and reflect upon its connection to PB Shelley's Ozymandias as well as our time facing scattered fragments of another of his colossal statues seemingly receiving little attention in Luxor, Egypt.

The British Museum: admiring the quality of Assyrian reliefs from nearly 3,000 years ago

The British Museum: I am less impressed with reliefs from Parthenon than the Assyrian ones above a few centuries older. The Elgin marbles also include pediments and metope panels, which are more striking. Understandably the display includes what looks like a justification for this controversial collection.

The British Museum: a decent Korean collection

The Clove Club: housed in the stately old Shoreditch Town Hall in East London but with a simple interior design and laid-back atmosphere

The Clove Club: the food is solid, even this liquid! (chestnut, oyster and Scottish seaweed)

The Clove Club: I am not to have any alcohol with the meal, but not going to refuse this included course - 1908 Madeira, which I know little about.

The Clove Club: the ending includes bon bons (right) inspired by the Fernet Branca hangover recipe by the nose-to-tail cooking guru Fergus Henderson.

Duck and Waffle: after sleeping in, we go up to the top of the Salesforce Tower for brunch with a great view of the city. Beyond the oval "The Gherkin", a glimpse of Tower Bridge.

Duck and Waffle: A very interesting and tasty "maple glazed cornbread with harissa yogurt"

Duck and Waffle: the namesake dish. We came here for the view but the food is surprisingly good. But we have to be careful not to be stuffed because there is going to be a major dinner tonight at another "duck" restaurant.

Lunch time in front of St. Paul's Cathedral

St. Paul's Cathedral: 200 steps up to Whispering Gallery, where there is a good view of the decorative part of the interior that Christopher Wren would not approve

Bray: arriving by train then taxi for dinner in this little village which boasts two world-class restaurants. We have a little time to stroll to Thames river in front of Waterside Inn before heading to the Fat Duck just a couple of blocks away.

The Fat Duck: reading the find print was never more fun. A magnifying glass is provided for reading the menu in the form of an itinerary. The lighting changes to reflect the theme of a 24-hour journey. 

The Fat Duck: the first course is a drink of choice immediately semi-frozen into a ball at tableside, appropriate for the master of "multi-sensory cooking" that Heston Blumenthal is.

The Fat Duck: high-end cereal! And a little 3D jigsaw puzzle to go with it. I feel rather proud of quickly finishing it but it seems other tables don't seem to have much trouble, either.

The Fat Duck: a seafood course. On the left are earbuds for some sound of the sea to set the mood. And on the right? Based the pre-visit questionnaire (part of my answer was that I enjoyed the Hebrides Islands earlier on this trip), a postcard featuring Staffa! I did not expected that.

The Fat Duck: a dish of items you may find on the forest floor with earthy aromas being generated

The Fat Duck: a mock turtle soup (no one needs to freak out) with a golden watch dropped in it (an explanation of the mock turtle as appears in Alice in Wonderland provided)

The Fat Duck: the fifth of the seven stages is a full four-course meal (a dinner within a dinner...). The dessert, named "Botrytis Cinerea," is a lot more beautifully presented than the name would suggest!

The Fat Duck: a digestif course of miniature Whiskey gums does not offer enough alcohol content to get you drunk! The distillery in Oban we skipped shows up here.

The Fat Duck: as if there has not been enough theatricality, it is bed-time now, the light is dimmed, and a mag-lev pillow appears! Oh, the white chocolate sponge is exquisite.

The Fat Duck: the image is blurred as the model of this restaurant is moving. The motion artifact cannot hide the little drawers hiding goodies. "Wow" is one word to describe this evening. It has quite possibly ruined fine dining for us forever...

The British Library: a suggested donation of five pounds, which not many people seem to pay? C'mon. We have the pleasure of being face to face with Magna Carta of course, but also the Gutenburg Bible, Da Vinci drawings, a Michelangelo letter,  last pages of the Halellujah Chorus by Handel, Mozart's own catalog, Elizabeth Browning's "How do I love thee, let me count the ways..." etc, etc.

Mirror Room, Rosewood Hotel: Afternoon Tea. Starting with traditional sandwiches.

Mirror Room: there are a number of places offering great afternoon tea in London, but only one that offers art-inspired pastry: Banksy, Yayoi Kusuma, and Alexander Calder (top layer), Mark Rothko and Damian Hurst (middle layer), and scone (bottom layer).

Mirror Room: I don't let gluttony get the better of me (even though my A1C check is still a good 6 months away) but even the aftermath (including the napkin) looks artistic!

Mirror Room: it may not be Versailles, but what an interesting use of mirrors!

Mirror Room: strawberries ready to go into your mouth

Trafalgar Square: faux Gandhi sharing the famous spot with Lord Nelson

Trafalgar Square: a levitating Yoda with St. Martin-in-the-Fields in the background

St. Martin-in-the-Fields: just missing a choir concert

Covent Garden: a view of the covered market from the Royal Opera House during a tour. The best tour of its kind, from the entrance featuring a bust of Sir Thomas Beecham to a ballet studio to a props room (where we learn the origin of the term).

A walk along the South Bank before dinner. But we arrive at Tower Bridge a little too late to witness the bridge lift, which happens only a few times a day.

The Ledbury: beetroot, white or red, seems to be on every menu these days. And the best sourdough bread ever.

The Ledbury: the server is rather impressed that we recognize the kokotxa (on top of seabass) from our travels in the Basque country.

The Ledbury: the best morel ever. The moral of the story is British cooking has improved tremendously in the last two decades. Morale is high on our last night in London!

England 1: The Lake District

Ambleside:  a train ride from Inverness via Edinburgh takes us to Penrith, a gateway to the Lake District in the northwest corner of Elgland. From there we rent a car and drive 45 minutes to Ambleside, an attractive town much smaller than nearby Windermere. Our B&B is down this street on the edge of town. I have just a little time to amble about before heading to our dinner location on the south end of the Lake District.

Cartmel: driving another half hour in narrow lanes lined with stone walls (I don't want to be stonewalled again!) to L'Enclume, the most acclaimed restaurant in the Lake District. 

L'Enclume: just behind our table is a nice garden. The staff here are overly casual and gregarious, not creating quite the ambiance you would expect in the top kitchen in a small town within the Lake District. When the Maitre D' greets you loudly, "are you excited about tonight?" it may not be a good sign, but fortunately the food is superb.

L'Enclume: a snack based on pumpkin is a good start - tasty, creative and artistic.

L'Enclume: fresh crab with seaweeds, presented with salted gooseberry and herb tart (in the back). Good that the detailed menu is presented on the table at the beginning as we have a hard time understanding the description by the servers who are mostly foreign. Who's going to do their job after Brexit?

L'Enclume: a pear dessert with sweet cheese and a little liquid nitrogen action soon to be added

L'Enclume: another find-your-real-treat-in-the-bonsai game 

Hill Top Farm: perhaps the No. 1 non-hiking attraction in the Lake District - a farm house where Beatrix Potter often retreated to and worked. A very slight drizzle and we take "I am borrowing a brolly at Hill Top" umbrellas. We had set out from our B&B a little later than planned because we commiserated with a Canadian couple at breakfast about American politics, but fortunately we were able to just beat the rush. 

Near Sawrey (as opposed to Far Sawrey): a short walk from the ticket office to Hill Top Farm is through a charming neighborhood, including this guest house, Buckle Yeat, featured in Potter stories.

Near Sawrey: entering Hill Top Farm

Hill Top Farm: this house is dark and small, and now crammed with visitors, but has been kept essentially the same as Beatrix Potter left it.

Hill Top Farm: a view outside the window of Treasure Room is punctuated by wisteria.

Hill Top Farm: the vegetable garden, an important part in the Beatrix Potter world

Near Sawrey: this little town with rhododendron in full bloom has a number of attractive B&Bs.

Near Sawrey

Driving along Esthwaite Water, much smaller than Lake Windermere, to a second Beatrix Potter site, the Gallery

Beatrix Potter Gallery: a rotating exhibit of her manuscripts and drawings at her husband's former office. Photography of individual items is not allowed because the copyright is owned by Penguin, while the books and drawings themselves are owned by the National Trust.

Grasmere:  clematis-covered Dove Cottage reveals itself. We are now in Wordsworth Country. 

Grasmere: compared to the lines at Beatrix Potter's Hill Top Farm, there is much less foot traffic through this humble entrance to a place where William Wordsworth wrote many of his best-known poems.

Dove Cottage: a slate floor typical of an old ale pub, which this house was before William Wordsworth moved in with his sister Dorothy.

Dove Cottage: the chair in which Wordsworth liked to sit and write. The sofa, with original quilt and pillow, according to the guide may well be the one mentioned in Daffodils - "For oft, when on my couch I lie..." 

Dove Cottage: in a small garden in the back, among other quotes, you find the ending of Ode: Intimations of Immortality.

Dove Cottage: highest point in the garden. 'The spot commands a view over the roof of our house, of the lake, the church, Helm Crag, and two-thirds of the vale.' (Grasmere Lake is barely visible now.)

Dove Cottage: the adjoining museum is practically empty, but for the Wordsworth enthusiast it is a gold mine. A book in the display case, explains the curator in the video, is a compilation of Dorothy's writings that survived the travails of Wordsworth's good friend Samuel Coleridge during his trip to Malta.

Dove Cottage: the newest version of the visitors' book is still left at the entrance, which had been signed by Woodrow Wilson, Virginia Woolf, E.M. Forster, the young Beatrix Potter...

Rydal Mount: next stop is the large estate, practically a mansion, where Wordsworth moved in at age 43 with his family (Dorothy, his wife Mary and children) and lived until his death. 

Rydal Mount: upstairs you can view the bedrooms of William and Mary, Dorothy, and Dora (the oldest daughter who would die of TB later and in whose memory his parents would purchase "Dora's Field" and plant daffodils).

Rydal Mount: the living room has portraits of William Wordsworth and his great great grand daughter who re-acquired this estate in the 1960's.

Rydal Mount: success bought him this large estate and he lived here longer than at Dove Cottage but he was not as productive and was criticized for selling out.

Rydal Mount: I would love to return here in April when daffodils are in full bloom in Dora's Field.

Keswick: a half hour drive up north from Amberside to explore the northern lake district today. The TI is in the market square but so are an old phone booth (who's using it now?) and a defibrillator? (not a great endorsement for hikers who start out from here!)

Derwent Water: we take a ferry in this popular lake from Keswick to Hawse End to start a hike.

Catbells Walk: only after a brief ascent on this popular trail, the hiker is rewarded with a nice view of Derwent Water .

Catbells: many hikers we see today seem surprisingly unfit and are having difficulty with a little rock scrambling

Catbells: on the other side from the lake is Newlands Valley

Catbells: the second faux peak is a good place to stop and consume the savory mince pie we bought in Keswick.

Keswick: the row of B&Bs in the Heads section of the town is where I originally planned to stay but decided to go to Ambleside instead. This would have been a fine choice, too.

Keswick: Pencil Museum. Graphite discovered in this area ultimately led to the invention of a pencil.

Keswick

Newlands Valley: negotiating one-track roads again, we go on a circular driving route around Keswick. Many farm houses in this valley also serve as B&Bs.

Newlands Pass: to his friend who is already waiting at the summit, this biker yells, "Why the hell did you pick this route on our first trip here?" A glimpse of Buttermere Lake at bottom of the hill. 

Buttermere: definitely more sheep than people in this little village

Buttermere: an idyllic little hamlet

Buttermere: going down to the lake shore

Buttermere Lake: a popular walking route around the lake

Honister Pass: no other cars. At the summit is a still functioning slate mine.

Castlerigg: after having some trouble finding this stone circle, we arrive exactly at sunset. Although there is little color at this time, the 5,000 year-old site in silence is definitely worth visiting. And an appropriate last sight in the Lake District (or "the Lakes" as they say.)