In anticipation of my upcoming week-long adventure in the Lakeland wilderness, I decided I needed some culture before trekking off into the valleys and hills. And when one is in need of culture, and finds oneself an hour and a half away from one of the world’s great cities, the decision is easy. So yesterday morning I was on the bus yet again, bound for London with two of my international amigos.

Easter performance in Trafalgar Square

To say London has influenced my cultural side is an understatement. As a country bumpkin, I have led a fairly sheltered life when it comes to museums and art galleries and the theatre. No disrespect of course to the ROM and AGO, which are both wonderful places, but London’s collection of cultural institutions are unparalleled by any Canadian city, and few other cities in the world for that matter. This is something many of the other European exchange students don’t understand, but these are also students from other cultural hubs like Germany, Italy, Spain and France. So when I get starry-eyed and excited about London, they nod politely and patiently indulge me. I think my rapt fascination and love for all the seemingly insignificant things that England and London has to offer is a source of amusement to them. I’m happy to play that role.

London is wonderful for a variety of reasons. The people are splendidly diverse (if you want to hear traditional English accents, go to the countryside, because you’re as likely to hear Slovenian or Mandarin in London as you are English), the places are uniquely different (London has many distinct districts with strong individual identities – you will never mistake Camden for Covent Garden), and the history is staggering (in a ten-minute walk you can see Big Ben, the houses of Parliament, Westminster Abbey, Westminster Cathedral, St James Park and Buckingham Palace). Those reasons are all well and good, but the purpose of this blog is to comment on London’s cultural assets, which combined with the reasons just mentioned, make London the most vibrant city I’ve ever visited.

As I said before, I didn’t have much exposure to or appreciation for art galleries and museums before coming to England. I viewed them as nice things to have in a city, and good to wander around every once in a while. Now I can’t get enough. I have been spoiled by London (and to some extent Oxford too with the Ashmolean and Pitt Rivers Museums). Part of the attraction of London’s institutions is their cost, or more accurately, their lack of cost. The places I’ve visited so far (both Oxford museums, the National Gallery, Tate Modern Gallery, Courtauld Gallery, the British Library, and today the British Museum) have all been free. Donations are accepted, and I usually toss in some change, but the beauty of these places is if you are suddenly consumed by an urge to see a Monet, Van Gogh, or Picasso painting or look at some ancient artifacts, all you have to do is walk in. No ticket, no line-up. As well as the cost factor, London’s cultural institutions house contents that are world-renowned. In the past weeks I have seen countless Impressionist paintings, a massive collection of Picassos, antiques and artifacts from around the world, original copies of Shakespeare’s manuscripts, an original copy of the Magna Carta, early versions of printed bibles, and I could go on. At each of these places I am simply overcome with awe at what humanity has achieved and how brilliantly creative and imaginative we are. Yesterday’s visit to the British Museum was no exception. In a short, two-hour visit, we wandered amongst Egyptian sarcophaguses, saw pieces of the Parthenon frieze and other sculptures from the Acropolis, and finally caught a brief, crowded glimpse at the famous Rosetta Stone. The British Museum (despite its name) strives to be a world museum, and it has a collection worthy of the title. Like the other big museums, you can’t see it all in one day, so it looks like I’ll just have to go back.

Classic Industrial Revolution housing near the British Museum

The British Museum

Inside the spectacular Great Court

The Rosetta Stone

Cool hieroglyphics on an Egyptian tomb

Pieces of the Parthenon frieze

One of a series of minotaur/human fighting sculptures. This was one of the most inact, the others feature headless, armless torsos fighting each other. It was kind of funny.

Clearly the Godfather borrowed something from the Greeks

Protest poster over inflation in Zimbabwe. Closer inspection revealed the poster was printed on bills as large as $5 billion

After a pub dinner in Chinatown (as strange as that sounds), the final cherry on top of our London day of culture took us to the Palace Theatre in Soho where we saw the stage production of Singin’ in the Rain. It was fantastic. Singin’ in the Rain is one of my top 3, favourite movies. If I were to be stranded on a desert island for the rest of my life, with only three movies to sustain me, it would make the cut. Thankfully, the play did not disappoint. Although it was mostly a re-creation of the movie, there were a few scenes omitted and a few that were carefully altered in order to transfer the movie to the stage more seamlessly. Some of the car scenes, and scenes that rely heavily on sets and props were watered down, but it didn’t detract at all from the show. The actor who played Cosmo Brown was a standout, the ‘Make ‘em Laugh’ scene and the diction coach scene were high points, just like in the movie. Lina Lamont’s hilariously grating, trashy, awful voice was spot-on, and the directors even incorporated a solo singing number for Lina. Suffice it to say the “singing” was frequently drowned out by laughter. Especially cool was the actual ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ scene, where heavy rain falls down from what must be a gigantic tank somewhere off-set. The effect was perfect and I think the actor playing Don Lockwood especially delighted in kicking the water on stage into the first few rows of the audience. It got some good laughs from above, and some shrill exclamations from below. The show was my first in London and I hope it is the first of many because going to the theatre is such a wonderful experience. With a show as joyful and merry as Singin’ in the Rain, the audience gets collectively caught up in a 2hr 40min wave of uplifting, blissful fun and everyone leaves humming or whistling a tune, with a great smile on their face.

The Palace Theatre in Soho

Our view. The floor was grooved to facilitate cleanup after the rain scenes.

When I was thinking about cities and the countryside the other day, trying to figure out why I loved going to cities but also loved escaping to the country (because my brain won’t stop at liking something, it has to analyze why I like it), I settled on the fact that cities are celebrations of humanity and culture, and the countryside and wilderness areas are celebrations of nature. It’s a crude distinction (there is culture in the countryside and there is nature in the city), but you get the idea. Cities are places to connect with our humanity. Cities are where you find museums, galleries, theatres, and other places that showcase our genius. The countryside and the wilderness are places to connect with nature and the spirit of the planet. As an aside, I think cities can play this role too, it’s one of the many reasons I find landscape architecture so attractive. So before I venture to the Lake District and have some solitary, spiritual wilderness time, I thought I should have a crowded, bustling, cultural day – to keep myself balanced. The last thing I need is a lopsided soul.

It is safe to say that the Lake District was everything I had hope for. Its landscape was staggeringly beautiful, its villages were poetically quaint, and its sheep were surprisingly adventurous. But I’ll start from the beginning. Settle down with something hot to drink, this promises to be one of the longer blogs.

As I mentioned in the earlier blog, I boarded the train at 6:36, bleary-eyed and cold but overwhelmingly excited. I didn’t sleep a wink on the train, instead choosing to watch the frosty, mist-cloaked countryside roll past my window in the early morning light. After transferring in Birmingham with no problems, I was on the train to Oxenholme. The train was eventually destined for Edinburgh, and to be honest, if I missed my stop it wouldn’t have been the end of the world. But Edinburgh must wait for another day, and I alighted at Oxenholme around 11:40. It was immediately apparent that I was no longer in the comfortable confines of the Cotswolds. Looking out from the platform, the sprawling expanse of Kendal was visible, but more impressive were the distant snow-capped peaks that cut across the horizon. I had not anticipated the persisting snow, but I had also not anticipated the great height of the fells. It is one thing to see them in photo-form, but quite another to see them in person, but more on that later. I took a short connecting train to Windermere, and got off feeling adventuresome and ravenously hungry. I bought a sandwich in Windermere, and ambled down to Bowness-on-Windermere to eat by the lake. To clarify, the town is called Windermere, and the lake is called Windermere (not Lake Windermere). I don’t know the exact linguistics behind it, but the lakes are either ‘meres’ or ‘waters’ (ie Windermere, Grasmere, Coniston Water, Wast Water). After my lunch, I hopped on the bus and began the search for my hostel. A couple of miles out of town, I found the YHA Windermere perched on a hillside, with a spectacular view of the hills and distant peaks. I checked in, made my bed, and took the unnecessary items out of my backpack before leaving with no particular destination in mind. I consulted my map, and decided to walk down the road to Troutbeck and see if I could find a hill to climb. By this time it was 2:30, so I didn’t have time for a long, tortuous walk. Or so I thought.

Windermere

I walked along the very pretty road to Troutbeck. Troutbeck (the town) is an enchanting cluster of farm cottages overlooking Trout Beck (the river) in the valley below. I followed the road until I saw the welcoming little way-marker indicating a nearby footpath. According to the map it was a bridleway called Nanny Lane, although judging by its angle of incline and its surface it was hardly a nanny friendly path. Anyhow, I began my ascent, intending to turn around and retrace my steps to the hostel. But at a fork in the path, I consulted the map and realized that the path I found myself on crossed over the ridge of Wansfell Pike and followed the slope down into the town of Ambleside on the other side. I figured I had enough time, and since I had come to the Lake District to have adventures, I decided to have one. On my way to the peak I soon realized that the hills are masters of deception. Not only are they deceivingly steep, but they taunt you with their topography. Three or four times I crested a ridge, expecting to find myself alone on top of the world, when in reality I found myself facing another daunting climb. By this time I had come too far to turn back, I was on a mission. I found myself filled with adrenaline, even at these demoralizing points. I would see a peak and feel a surge of energy and launch forward in a fit of irrational vigour. It was wonderful and by the time I did finally come to the top I was lavishly rewarded for my tenacious efforts. With the wind whipping up a frenzied applause, I stood completely exposed and alone on Wansfell Pike, 360m above my starting point and a numbing euphoria came over me. I stood there grinning, breathing deeply, letting the raucous wind swirl around me, and drank in the view. It was truly spectacular, a 360 degree panorama of rugged mountains, clusters of houses, and crystal clear lakes. The peaks beyond me, were a dazzling white, their rugged backbones disappearing into the shroud of low clouds. It was an experience like no other, and something that (although I have tried my best to do here) is really indescribable. And that, ladies and gentlemen is how the arduous and draining activity that is hill-walking claimed another victim. All it took was one peak, and I was hooked. The descent was not particularly pleasant, with each steep step inflicting a jarring shot of pain on my thoroughly irritated knees. I would like to say I powered through and marched with conviction down to Ambleside, but the fact was that even on the spryest of knees the hills take a toll and the descent was slower and much more laborious than the adrenaline fuelled climb. I took the bus back to the hostel and ravenously devoured some very tasty beef chili in the hostel restaurant before collapsing on my bunk.

Troutbeck

Troutbeck: where the cottages look like cottages should

Up up and away

And up ...

And up ...

And up ...

I woke up yesterday morning at 7:30, in order to eat breakfast before the big school group who were staying at the hostel descended on the small dining room. Breakfast was a hearty affair, consisting of the necessary components of an English Breakfast (fried egg, hash browns, sausage, beans, and fried tomato) as well as some cereal and tea. I had a big day planned so I needed all the fuel I could get, and the kitchen staff was happy to oblige. On Tuesday I decided on a more concrete plan. The morning would take me from Grasmere to Easedale Tarn before walking back to Ambleside via Loughrigg Fell. I caught the bus and was in Grasmere (another town with the same name as its lake), on my way by 10:30. The minor inconvenience of the day was that I had to check out of the hostel before leaving, which meant lugging all my belongings with me along on my adventure. Luckily I had packed light, so (initially at least) it was not too cumbersome. I followed the footpaths out of Grasmere toward Easedale Tarn, and unlike the day before, I was not alone on my walk today. Ahead of me on the path I could see little specks of colour negotiating the slope, all working toward our collective goal. It was if Monet had composed the fells, brushing swathes of earthy ochres, dull greens and reds, dotted with occasional conifer and clusters of bare deciduous trees before blending the horizon into the dark brooding clouds above. It was a magically tranquil sight, made even more so by the misty rain and the complete absence of any car-related noise (I had selected this route especially since it was so separated from the main roadway). I set off along the trail and began the climb to Easedale Tarn. It was another steep climb, but again I was handsomely rewarded with some majestic waterfalls and sweeping views back to Grasmere. Climbing the hills is an interesting process in that as you climb, you see very little of the landscape. The focus is on avoiding rocks intent on shattering your ankle and streams intent on soaking your feet. Much of your attention is therefore directed at the ground and only at breaks can you actually sit back and contemplate your surroundings. So, suffice it to say, I took many breaks. I crested ridge and a mossy plateau spread out before me. Beyond it was an especially craggy edifice which was cloaked in a misty, almost steamy haze. I guessed that this must be where the tarn is. I was right and as I climbed up the suddenly snowy slope (the morning rain had now turned to a welcome gentle snow), I found Easedale Tarn. I must say, it was a completely different experience than Wansfell Pike. At Wansfell, the scene was one of exposed, windy bluster, and at Easedale it was the complete opposite. The tarn is surrounded on all sides by imposing cliffs and the result, combined with the muffling effect of the snow and the aforementioned absence of vehicular noise, is complete silence, the likes of which I had never felt. Just like Wansfell, I was breathless (partly because of the climb), but this time I felt an overwhelming calm. No adrenaline, just peace. The tarn was like glass, its surface gently animated by the lazily falling snow, the cliffs reflected in its surface like a mirror. I found a rock and sat, losing myself in the silence and the scene. It may sound cliché, but these places really do have the entrancing ability to make all other worries fall away.

Day 2

The steamy sign of Easedale Tarn

The tarn

My future home

Some brave souls walked past me, on their way to the more formidable peaks, but feeling less confident in my ability to navigate a snow-covered mountain in the cloud, I went back down the other side of the valley toward Grasmere. After finding a cheery little restaurant where I indulged in a pot of tea and delightful turkey/brie/cranberry panini I set off along the shore of Grasmere toward Loughrigg Fell, and ultimately toward Ambleside where I would catch the bus to Windermere train station. By now it was 2:30, so my climb did have a slightly limited time budget, but I figured to have left myself ample time to reach the peak and wander down to town. I followed the shore of Grasmere along a narrow roadway edged with moss-clad stone walls. I broke off up a bridleway through a steep section of woodland before bursting out onto the exposed side of Loughrigg. Again I was faced with a daunting climb, and again I ignored my protesting body (my shoulders, burdened with my backpack, had now joined the chorus of discomfort). And again, the hill taunted me with its multiple peaks until I reached its top. Though not as tall as Wansfell Pike, the view was just as grand. I looked out toward sunny Langdale and Grasmere before turning and facing the dark rumbling clouds of Windermere, heading straight for me. So I didn’t linger as long on this peak, and began to make my way for Ambleside as the driving snow began to fall. The descent was manageable by Wansfell standards, and in about an hour I was back in Ambleside.

My lunch spot

Grasmere

Loughrigg Fell, going up ...

and up ...

Looking back on Grasmere

After taking the bus back to Windermere and wandering the town for a while, I was back on the train, heading back toward civilization. Luckily for me, my train journey was in darkness so I could sit in peace and think about my beautiful adventures without being visually assaulted by the sprawling ugliness of Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

I’ve calculated that I covered around 25km during my two days, and it was 25km of pure euphoric bliss. The Lake District has proven worthy of my hopes and expectations, and I anxiously await April 1 and the start of my Easter break adventure.

I’m sure there are other places that I could set off for on a March Monday in Europe. Places that are warm and exotic, places with beaches, places where I can get a tan. That may be convention, but I’m not a conventional tourist. Beaches and tans are nice and I do hope to go somewhere warm later on, but give me a mountain to climb in the cold, damp, rugged area of northwestern England known as the Lake District, and I’m there in a heartbeat. It has been at the top of my list of things to see in England since I made up my mind to come here, and the truth is, I couldn’t wait until Easter to get my first taste. So after handing in two essays on Wednesday, I felt significantly liberated from my (admittedly gentle) academic bonds, and decided to go.

My train leaves Oxford at the crack of dawn (6:36) and arrives in Windermere around 11:00, after transfers at Birmingham and Oxenholme. I will be staying at a youth hostel in Windermere, a stay that cost all of fifteen pounds (and that includes the breakfast on Tuesday). It really was a steal and since prices almost double during the Easter period and later in the summer I figured it was as good an excuse as any to go. As if I needed more convincing. I have yet to stay in a hostel, so that should be an adventure in itself, although I wonder how busy a hostel will be on a Monday in March? At any rate, I’ll find out, and report back accordingly.

I haven’t really decided where I want to walk around Windermere, but from the sounds of it, there are startlingly few ugly trails in the Lake District, so I should be able to manage. A couple of weeks ago, in one of my almost daily visits to Blackwell’s I purchased the Ordnance Survey map of the central Lake District. It seems that not a day goes by that I don’t flip it open and wistfully trace the webs of paths with my finger. Every time I look at it and look at pictures of the National Park online, I am gripped with a fierce desire to be there. The allure of those majestically rugged peaks, cascading waterfalls and woodland-fringed, crystal clear lakes is simply too much to ignore.

It has recently been brought to my attention that I led you astray in my last blog, promising to talk about one of England’s grandest country houses and then failing to deliver. So, to right this unforgiveable wrong, I will now revisit my day trip to Blenheim Palace from last week. Omitting Blenheim was intentional, it was just shoddy editing on my part. The reason that I left it out of my last blog was that I felt that it warranted its own separate discussion, mostly because I knew the discussion would turn into another landscape-architecture fuelled rant. So buckle up.

To be clear, I have no issues with the palace itself. It is truly spectacular; a grandiose statement in stone that is a testament to its supremely talented creators. Nicholas Hawksmoor and John Vanbrugh are two of the household names in British architecture, and at Blenheim it is easy to see why. The palace is an English Baroque version of Versailles, more modest in detail – it lacks Versailles flair for gold, bright colours and other bells and whistles – but just as impressive in scale. It is strongly symmetrical around a great courtyard, adorned with classical sculpture and ornaments, and demonstrates an almost manic obsession with proportionality. All that having been said, Blenheim confirmed my personal preference for domestic architecture – for buildings that look as though they’re meant to be lived-in and loved. I can appreciate the creativity and genius behind a place like Blenheim, but it is more of a monument than a home, and when it comes to buildings, I prefer something more “human” and welcoming. This preference holds true for other English buildings as well. I generally prefer the architecture of the historic old streets, shops, hotels and markets of cities than the monumental tourist buildings. I greatly prefer Covent Garden Market over Buckingham Palace for example. I also prefer the thatch roofed cottages of the Cotswold villages to the colleges of Oxford. Maybe it’s the country kid in me coming out, but that’s just my opinion of architecture.

Getting back on track, my real issue with Blenheim, is with its grounds and parkland (shocking as that may sound). The landscape was designed by the infamous Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown who we learned so much about in our first year “History of Cultural Form” class. Capability Brown was a master of the English “picturesque” style of landscape gardening. Basically he was an artist, carefully composing a landscape through the artful placement of trees, sculptures, ponds etc. Admittedly, the landscape at Blenheim (which consists of a man-made lake and rolling expanses of trees and lawns) is very artistically composed, but I think that’s the problem. It looks too designed, and it is made to look too static. It is as if the landscape is meant to be only viewed from a distance. To be fair, at least they let you walk on the grass, but it feels too structured and formal to be enjoyed. I think the main issue is that there is nothing to animate the landscape. Wild places are animated by wildlife and diverse varieties of plants (a National Park is exceptionally dynamic because it is home to so many creatures and plants), urban places on the other hand are human habitats and therefore animated by people (streets and plazas are not alive in a biological sense, but people occupy them and give them a dynamic, living quality). Blenheim, seems to be caught in no-man’s-land. The interests of wildlife are cast aside in the interests of artistry, so that dynamic potential is lost, and the people who could animate the landscape feel (or at least I felt) discouraged to interact with it. In Central Park (a park designed in the same “picturesque” style) I would feel no trepidation about playing frisbee on the grass or walking around barefoot. I can never picture anyone doing that at Blenheim. It’s as if the grounds have been made to be a museum, something from the past, something carefully preserved, and something to be seen and not touched. I think that’s appropriate for the building, but not for the outdoors.

But enough of this critical ranting and raving, on to something that I genuinely and totally enjoyed from this week. I’m sure there are more exciting, adrenaline-pumping things that I could have done on a beautiful sunny day than wandering through farmer’s fields in Gloucestershire, but on Monday I couldn’t think of any, so that’s precisely where I found myself. Armed with my trust Ordnance Survey map of the Cotswolds I set off in the morning for the train station, determined to find somewhere to explore. I took a half-hour train ride to Moreton-in-Marsh (another one of those quaint little fairy-tale village names), and got my bearings. I decided to follow the ‘Monarch’s Way’ footpath towards Stow-on-the-Wold (I’m not making these names up I swear), but first I dawdled around Moreton. It is a very pretty little old market town, featuring numerous buildings that fit my idea of nice, “lived-in and loved” architecture. The contents of the buildings are mostly boutique art galleries, antique shops and tea rooms. Very few buildings in the town centre seemed to fulfill any sort of necessity but I thankfully found the lone grocery store and bought some things for lunch. If you were quite a few years older than I am (and it seemed like everyone in town was), you could easily have spent the whole day ambling through the galleries and ogling the antiquities, but after half an hour of wandering I had had my fill and I headed for the fields.

In many ways this picture succinctly sums up Moreton-in-Marsh

As I alluded to before, I am realizing more and more by the day how much of a country kid I really am. I love cities, and visiting London is always a thrill, but I have accepted the fact that I desperately need wide open spaces to explore. Wide open spaces that are far away from metropolises like London, and that preferably have some sheep who I can chat with. And so as I wandered along the fields of Moreton on a gloriously sunny day, shouting greetings to confused looking sheep, I found myself feeling wholly refreshed and smiling like a fool once again. 

The tire swing only added to my foolishness

My new friends

I may have said this already, but England really has a good thing going with their extensive networks of public footpaths. It is a totally foreign concept to Canadians. We fence off our land, slap up some “No Trespassing” signs and take great offense to ramblers venturing on to “our” land. On my walk, the public footpaths often lead quite directly through the very middle of a farmer’s pasture (sometimes there was an alternate path to take if the cows were out grazing), and the walkers don’t upset the farmers as long as they keep their garbage off the fields and close the gates behind them. That’s all they ask. It’s a beautiful relationship, fostering a shared sense of ownership and responsibility for the land you’re walking on. The farmer may have the deed to the land, but if feels like common property, like it’s not his/her field but our field. Everyone has an interest in how it is maintained and cared for: the farmer wants a productive pasture, and the walkers want a nice path.

My walk took me through a series of fields, over a series of stiles and through a series of gates. I should mention that no two gates had the same locking mechanism. Some of them were either broken, or a little too idiot proof, I can’t decide which. At a couple of instances, thoroughly befuddled, I discreetly looked to ensure nobody was watching before quickly and gracefully scrambling over the gate, composing myself and forging ahead. In my own special way, I had outsmarted the pugnacious little gate latch. A great victory for humanity indeed. Eventually I reached the village of Lonborough. By Cotswold standards it is nothing to write home about (even though that’s kind of what I’m doing now), but it had endearing qualities, among which were a number of pretty little stone cottages, with names to match. Names like “Honeysuckle Cottage” or “Cutie Pie Place” or “Snugglemuffin’s Nest”. Along those lines.

Longborough

The stiles were straightforward. No latches or anything

I passed through Longborough and made my way uphill. We haven’t had rain for what feels like eons, yet somehow there was an abundance of mud on the narrow slope up the hill. My boots and pants look as if I fought a long and difficult battle with the mud (which I sort of did), and in hindsight I must have been a bit of a sight walking back home through Oxford, but never mind. I made it to the top of the hill and found a fence to sit on next to a woodland that Google Maps tells me is called “Humblebee Coppice” (not made up), and had my lunch overlooking the town below. After I felt sufficiently nourished and rested, I made my way further along the trail towards Stow. I crested another couple of hills, before descending again into the village of Broadwell. From there it was a steep uphill trek along a narrow roadway (thankfully the only road I encountered on my journey) before finally reaching my destination of Stow-on-the-Wold.

My lunch picnic view

Stow is sickeningly pretty. For the contemporary, fast-paced Londoner I imagine the village is repulsive and hideously out of touch with modern reality. If you ask me, it’s their loss, and they are probably not missed by the small-town folk and tourists I found there. Like Moreton, Stow is an old market town with some beautiful stone buildings and boutique shops. There are little alleyways full of hidden gems (one such gem was a wonderfully claustrophobic bookstore which was home to a dog with a penchant for heavy snoring) and a church that is over 1,000 years old. I was quite fond of it, and it was well worth the 2.5 hour, 10km walk. I caught a bus back to Moreton, and slowly picked my way through town back to the train station, and returned to the bustle of Oxford. There is much to be said for cities, but if you ask me, there is more to be said for the countryside and the respite it offers.

I recently bought the collection of major works by English poet William Wordsworth in anticipation of my Lake District escapades, and one of his quotes perfectly sums up how I feel about the countryside.

When from our better selves we have too long been parted
By the hurrying world and droop
Sick of its business, of its pleasures tired,
How gracious, how benign is solitude