Rain, rain, rain. We planned an extra day here in Coniston in case anyone wanted to climb the local mountain, the “Old Man” of Coniston. Ha! We couldn’t even see the Old Man through the rain and mist. But there are boat rides on the lake - Coniston Water, as it’s called. One of the rides you can take is across the lake to Brantwood, the home of John Ruskin.
Ruskin is a really familiar name, but we didn’t actually know much about him. So we went to find out. He was truly a 19th century Renaissance man: writer, artist, art critic, philosopher, and one of the earliest people to articulate the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution. Here’s a favorite quote from him we encountered on our tour:
“All true science begins in the love, not the dissection, of
your fellow-creatures; and it ends in the love, not the
analysis, of God.”
It was also a day of exploring options, since we discovered that the 14-mile day we had planned for tomorrow is actually a 20 mile day, over a pass. Plan B was to take a taxi part way and then go over the pass. But at the local sports shop, Sheila and Barb were warned that storms the next day would make the pass, well, impassable. Hmmm. Plan C was to take a taxi all the way to our planned night's stop in Stonethwaite, but the following day's weather (when we had another pass to climb) looked just as bad. Then suddenly, up popped Plan D: if we could stay another night in Coniston, we could take a taxi to Ambleside, a nearby and considerably larger town, and enjoy the sights there. It turned out that our B&B had just had a cancellation and we could indeed stay another night.
Ruskin is a really familiar name, but we didn’t actually know much about him. So we went to find out. He was truly a 19th century Renaissance man: writer, artist, art critic, philosopher, and one of the earliest people to articulate the dehumanizing effects of the Industrial Revolution. Here’s a favorite quote from him we encountered on our tour:
“All true science begins in the love, not the dissection, of
your fellow-creatures; and it ends in the love, not the
analysis, of God.”
It was also a day of exploring options, since we discovered that the 14-mile day we had planned for tomorrow is actually a 20 mile day, over a pass. Plan B was to take a taxi part way and then go over the pass. But at the local sports shop, Sheila and Barb were warned that storms the next day would make the pass, well, impassable. Hmmm. Plan C was to take a taxi all the way to our planned night's stop in Stonethwaite, but the following day's weather (when we had another pass to climb) looked just as bad. Then suddenly, up popped Plan D: if we could stay another night in Coniston, we could take a taxi to Ambleside, a nearby and considerably larger town, and enjoy the sights there. It turned out that our B&B had just had a cancellation and we could indeed stay another night.
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