Chauffeur Services in Ambleside

Through the central Lakes the A591 is the only real road, and across July, August and the bank holidays it carries far more traffic than it was ever built to take. Between Windermere, Ambleside and Grasmere the stretch can crawl from late morning into early evening, the Rydal narrows and the Ambleside junctions being the worst of it. Our preference is to move guests early or late, and where a schedule hangs on crossing that road at two o'clock in August, we will say so plainly.

Passes are another matter entirely. Kirkstone, up the A592 towards Ullswater, runs steep and exposed and shuts under snow several times in most winters, while Hardknott and Wrynose suit no large saloon in any season at all. Wet autumn weather puts standing water across the low road at Rydal Water, and the fell becks rise fast. For anything with a flight or a train attached we stay on the A591 and A593, treating the scenic route as a pleasure in its own right.

On a long journey, Britain's weather does more damage than its traffic ever will. Winter afternoons close in early, and that matters a great deal when the final leg is a single-track road. Highland and moorland routes can run substantially longer than any summer estimate suggests. Those allowances go into the timings from the start, rather than being discovered together halfway up a glen. Where a departure hour makes the schedule uncomfortable, we propose a better one.

Demand tracks the calendar closely. Bank holiday weekends fill fast, so do the weeks either side of Christmas, the summer wedding season and those university terms that all begin and end together. The further from London a journey runs, the sooner a car wants committing to it. Midweek travel in the shoulder months, by contrast, is the easiest thing in the world to arrange.