Hi Ryan and Erika -
I suppose it depends on what time your flight lands at Manchester. If it’s still early enough to make a train journey of around 4-5 hours you can get a direct to Edinburgh train via Transpennine Express from the airport station - the services are fairly frequent, some involve one change of train. Tickets for late May do not appear to be on sale yet - check out www.tpexpress.co.uk. These trains I believe call at both York and Durham. They also get pretty busy, so when booking tickets if you can tie down a timed train, make sure you reserve seats. The good news is Transpennine has just introduced swishy new rolling stock onto their routes, so hopefully a brand new train!
If your flight lands late in the day at Manchester and an overnight stop is in order, we have stayed a couple of times at the Clayton House Hotel which is right above the station. However having walked there from the station I would say avoid that, because the area is full of high speed roads with no pathway for the most part. Instead head for the railway station. If memory serves you’ll come through a covered walkway and descend towards the platforms. Before the escalator/steps to the platform there’s an exit to the right as you approach and on the wall to the left of the doors is a courtesy phone to summon the hotels free courtesy bus. The phone works for all the hotels on the airport site and the numbers are posted adjacent. The bus will drop you back there next morning. The Clayton House is nothing special, maybe even getting a wee bit tired, but the prices are reasonable (I got a deal via booking.com) and it is handily situated. Make sure you carry a paper confirmation of your booking - the front desk had the date of our stay wrong and the paper confirmation was very useful in easily displaying that they had indeed fouled up. We were accommodated with no problem and we didn’t have to get snotty with them.
The sooner you book your Lake District accommodation the better, if you haven’t done so already. It gets very busy in the summer months everywhere. I always recommend a stay in Coniston as it is off the beaten track a little but is still in the heart of the (southern) lakes and has lots of choice, comparatively. Keswick remains a good base but gets incredibly busy and parking is an absolute nightmare especially in the streets around the myriad B&Bs. Avoid the honeypots of Windermere, Bowness and Ambleside if possible (although some years back we stayed at the Drunken Duck pub in the hills above Ambleside and that was rather nice if off the beaten track, can’t fully recommend as it has been quite a while since we were there) and to a lesser extent, Grasmere. I believe there is a website for farm B&B’s - I’m not sure of the address, maybe another forum reader can enlighten us.
For cultural events in the Lakes look under ‘agricultural shows’ - these take place through spring to early summer throughout northern England. Also if near enough to Keswick, check out the programme at The Theatre on the Lake. I think you might well miss the Keswick Mountain Festival which I think is in the first two weeks of May. The Brewery Arts Centre in Kendal is also worth checking out for musical events.
Have you got specific towns or places of interest from you genealogy research? My wife has spent a lot of time researching hers and has spent quite some time in the very small, lesser towns and villages of Northern England in search of her forebears!
Have a great trip!
Ian
