Day 1 - Saturday 8th September

Ambleside to Grasmere
8 miles, 3 3/4 hours (including pub visits)

About the day
The first day should be from Ambleside to Rosthwaite but we split it into two sections for a few reasons. We had to travel up from Suffolk which took around six hours, not leaving much time for walking. We could have simply started the walk on Sunday, but found it impossible to book any accommodation in Ambleside for a single night at a weekend. As we had the extra days available we decided to spread the holiday out a little.

This meant we had plently of time to visit some of the numerous pubs on the first day. The route lists 16 pubs on the first stage, 8 of which are in Ambleside. We decided to save 3 for the final day when we return to Ambleside. The places we visited were:



1) Salutation Hotel, Ambleside - 11:40am

A smart hotel lounge bar. Comfortable seating, very quiet. Nice coffee.





2) Churchills, Ambleside - 12:00pm

Large air conditioned, open plan modern pub with TV screens.




3) Royal Oak, Ambleside - 12:30pm

Small cosy bar. Seating outside in a sunny spot.




4) White Lion Hotel, Ambleside - 12:45pm

Family friendly food pub. Large indoors, limited seating outdoors.





5) Unicorn Inn, Ambleside - 1:30pm

Very cosy, friendly traditional pub. Good beer.






With our rucksacks packed we finally set off from Bridge House in Ambleside at 2:30.







We began with a gentle stroll along the track towards Rydal Hall. At Rydal we took a short detour down past the church to reach the next pub of the day.




6) Badger Bar, Rydal - 3:25pm

On busy road, but nice beer garden. Lots of badger items inside. Seemed very dark after the bright sunshine.





Retracing our steps we returned to the path continuing through woods towards Grasmere. There were occasional glimpses of Rydal Water through the trees. The water looked very inviting on such a hot day.





Leaving the woods, there was a tough climb up towards Alcock Tarn. This was hard going for our first day in the hills. We were rewarded with great views over Grasmere lake and back along the length of Windermere.







The route then dropped just as steeply back down to the valley to reach two more pubs on the roadside.




7) Travellers Rest, Grasmere - 5:30pm

A nice floral pub with great views over to Helm Crag.




8) The Swan, Grasmere - 5:50pm

A very smart hotel bar. Seating outside on busy road but with good view of Grasmere.


After these quick stops we walked through Grasmere village and found our B & B for the evening - Banerigg Guest House.


After freshening up we returned to the village for the final two pubs for today.



9) Lamb Inn, Grasmere - 7:45pm

A very busy popular pub.




10) Tweedies Bar, Grasmere - 8:15pm

A lovely small bar with huge garden. Hosting the 1st Grasmere beer festival. A very good food menu here.