The Lake District in North West England

The most visited national park in the United Kingdom with 15.8 million annual visitors and more than 23 million annual day visits. Known simply as 'The Lakes' this National Park in North West England is home to some of the greatest nature and hiking trails in the U.K and wildlife such as the Fell pony which is native to North West England.


Many great poets and writers have lived in The Lakes such as William Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter (both have museums/ homes that you can visit) and has had famous visitors such as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Sir Walter Scott and John Keats to mention a few.

These pictures were taken around the village Elterwater, Grasmere and Windermere:

John Lennon in New York City

In pervious blogs I’ve shown the Lennon walls in Sofia, Bulgaria and in Prague, Czech Republic so I thought that I’d add the final John Lennon site outside of Liverpool which I found on my travels which is the Strawberry Fields in Central Park NYC:

 

Strawberry Fields NYC was dedicated to Lennon on the 9 October 1985 which would have been his 45^th birthday by Lennon's widow Yoko Ono. 

The entrance to the memorial is located on Central Park West at West 72nd Street where John would often go for walks with his son Sean because it is directly across from the Dakota Apartments, where Lennon had lived for the later part of his life, and where he was murdered. 

The memorial is named after The Beatles song "Strawberry Fields Forever" which is named after Strawberry Field in Liverpool which was once a Salvation Army children's home where a young John Lennon would go to garden parties that took place each summer on the grounds of Strawberry Field.

The Dakota building has a very strange feel to it, a flame burning by the entrance and many iron gargoyles set a mourning atmosphere and knowing the history of what happened in the entrance gates gave a very strong reality to the story of Lennon’s life and is far from the semi-detached home he grew up in back in Liverpool yet the peaceful Strawberry Fields near both the homes have a completely different air, a celebration of life and a sense of peace fill the memorial section of Central Park. People playing guitars and exchanging stories while others take pictures by the “Imagine” mosaic which usually has messages, pictures, candles and flowers around it in a tribute to Lennon. The area feels far from NYC city at times and is a great place to sit and relax while people watching, so many interesting characters come here that it’s hard not to like.