Day trips: Chester, Sunshine Port, Haddrian’s Wall, and the Lake District

Chester

A short train trip from Liverpool, 40 minutes and 5 pounds round trip, is the walled town of Chester. It is a little gem waiting to be explored for a day.

The first major site I came across is the Cathedral. It is a wonderful building with beautiful gardens outside and a quirky inner courtyard. I say quirky because there is an art display of lit up sculptures of bugs and other colorful animals. It’s hardly the religious scene one might expect.

Inside, each pew had different but detailed carvings at the ends.

It seems many of the churches in the UK are being used as galleries of often immense modern art.

Beyond the Cathedral, Chester is a walled city with much of the wall still remaining and tourists allowed to walk on. There are also some roman ruins and river promanods. So, really, something for everyone.

Town Crier welcoming visiters to Chester in many languages.

Standing on the wall looking down at Chester Roman Park, which has mosaics and other roman era finds built in 1949.

Eastgate Clock is standing on the original entrance to the fortress built around AD 70. it was occupied by Romans until the early 5th century. The current gate dates to 1768, and the clock was added in 1899.

From the Eastgate looking into old town.

Port Sunlight

Even closer at 25 minutes and 3.5 pounds round trip is the village of Sunlight.

Map of Sunlight found outside the train station.

As the website for Port Sunlight says:

“Welcome to Port Sunlight, the village founded by ‘Soap King’ William Hesketh Lever in 1888. The village was built to house Lever’s ‘Sunlight Soap’ factory workers, but today is home to a fascinating museum, beautiful architecture, a world-class art gallery, stunning parkland and a thriving community.” Home | Port Sunlight Village

Haddrian’s Wall

The most northern point that the Romans conquered is outlined by Haddrian’s Wall. It was the equivalent of the Great Wall of China for its time.

It is about a 2 1/2 hour drive but really depends on which section one is visiting. Since we were planning on returning via the Lake District, we didn’t want to go too far east.

We decided to stop at a fort and wall section close to Carlisle. Bob was driving and really wanted to see a piece of the wall that went up hills. It is an image on a lot of postcards and such, but none of us in the car knew where that section was.

As we got to the first stop, the car gave a warning that it was almost out of fuel. So our main priority would be gassing up since we were not near a petrol station.

When we entered the visitor center, they directed us to go 11 miles down the road if we wanted to see the hilled wall, so we left after visiting the toliets. But even more critical was the petrol situation since the car was empty.

A few miles down the road, I spotted a service sign that would take us a few miles off course, but since we were on windy, narrow country roads, it seemed like the best chance of gas. When we got the only service station, it was out of fuel! We were told to get out on the main moterway and head towards Newcastle.

We were now coasting on fumes as we wound our way to the nearest highway petrol station. We did make it and then went back to trying to find the wall again.

At stop 2, I let the lady know we were looking for a hilly spot to take a couple of quick pictures, and then we needed to be on our way. She directed us 3 miles back from where we came to find the postcard section.

Part of the 3rd section that we stopped at.

We would have needed to walk up the hills a bit to find the shot that Bob wanted, but time was ticking, so he didn’t get the perfect shot, but I liked these.

The Lake District

We left the wall and traveled southwest to the Lake District. The countryside is gorgeous, and I can definitely see why it has been a holiday detination for centuries.

Our first stop was a few mile short of Cockermouth, Castlerigg Stone Circle. This monument was built around 3000 BC.

Our second stop was Grasmere where we picked up some tasty gingerbread for a snack.

Grasmere is also the home of William Wordsworth and houses his grave.

From Grasmere, we headed to Ambleside to grab a better lunch/dinner than gingerbread.

4 out of 5 of us had the steak pie. Our 5th person had the fish and chips.

Our final stop was at a pituresque Lake Windermere lookout atop Queen’s Hill. We needed at least one good picture of the many lakes we had driven past all afternoon.

By this time, the light was leaving, and we wanted to get back to Liverpool. Five adults in the rental car were pushing the limits of what the car could hold, and as the backseat middle person, I think I have a permanent divit in my rear end from the seat belt buckles.

It was a fabulous day, but if I had to do it over, I think 2 days would have been better, and we wouldn’t have had such a mad rush everywhere.

Chasing Summer –