Day 4: Carlisle

Peter about to enter the city!

Today was not a walking day...or rather, not a walking day on the hills.  We decided to give our muscles a rest and get a bit of culture instead.  We drove north to Carlisle, a border town with a Roman and Scots versus English history.   We made a few wrong turns and eventually found a car park under the western walls with a staircase going up and emerging near the cathedral.  Perfect spot! 

We made our way to the Tullie House Museum and started in the cafe with coffee and the newspapers.  No rush!  Then we realised it was 1.0 pm and a sensible time to have lunch.  Eventually we hit the museum, laid out in three sections.  The lower floor devoted to Roman history, the upper floor to Scottish, English and local history and then somewhere in between the old house with pictures.  Excellent exhibits that had us looking, reading and listening for a long time.  They have some excellent pre-Raphelite paintings and a 20th century collection that included Nash and Spencer. Walls were decorated with some splendid Victorian tiles.

Wall tiles

Just as we were enjoying the paintings we realised that we had a few minutes only left on the parking...so we hurried back down the walls.  It seemed pretty quiet so we purchased another ticket and set off in another direction to explore further and buy some supper.  We had a notion that Carlisle was where we had found an attractive dress shop but we couldn't identify the right area.  We may have been mistaken and it was frustrating to say the least to have Peter resigned to looking at clothes and no dress shop worth stopping at in sight. 

Instead, we walked to the station for a glimpse (Peter has all sorts of interests!) and then found a butcher and an M&S food hall and bought supper before driving home.   Cooking on the Rayburn/Aga is an art that I have not quite mastered.  Peter stays out of the kitchen as much as possible while I am huffing and puffing!   It turned out fine though and took our minds off the England v. Costa Rica match.