Visit to Bakewell

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We visited Bakewell in Derbyshire, the home of the Bakewell pudding and tart.  This was our first time visiting and, unfortunately, our first impressions were not good.

We found it very difficult to park, and found that the disabled parking spaces on the main car parks were quite small. We eventually parked near to Boots, where the disabled spaces were of a reasonable size. In Bakewell, everyone has to pay to park, even Blue Badge holders, so the next task was to find a machine to pay for parking. Where we parked there was an arrow pointing to the right, that was supposed to indicate where you could pay for parking. It wasn’t very clear though and I had to ask an attendant where to pay. He directed me to a nearby car park. When I got to the machine, I discovered that the maximum parking time was two hours, which meant that we felt kind of rushed for the whole visit. We did see a long stay car park while we were driving around, but that was full. The machine said that it took card payments and cash, although like most machines it would not give change. There were also notices saying that attendants wouldn’t give change either. I wanted to pay by card, however the machine would not accept the payment. The same attendant that I saw earlier told me that the machines were temperamental and sometimes wouldn’t take card payments. This was a time that the machine wouldn’t take the payment. Luckily, I managed to scrape together enough change to pay the parking charge. A woman trying to pay after me was extremely annoyed that she had gone through the hassle of trying to park, to then be unable to pay by card as she didn’t have enough change.

Eventually, after all the problems with parking, we went for a walk around the town. It’s very picturesque and has a lot of places where you can get something to eat and drink. It was also very busy as it’s popular with tourists, and as it’s in the Peak District, a lot of walkers go there too. There are a few shops around that (not surprisingly) sell Bakewell puddings and Bakewell tarts, and these shops also offer a postal service where they will send a pudding or a tart to you at home. We went into one of the shops and we had some Bakewell tarts, and we bought a large one to bring home. After eating a Bakewell tart from Bakewell, I can honestly say that I could never eat a mass produced Bakewell tart from a supermarket again! They were delicious and I wished that I had bought more than one tart to bring home! I shall definitely give serious consideration to using the Bakewell postal service to get another Bakewell tart.

It’s unlikely that we will visit again because, although the town is very picturesque and the people are friendly, the whole parking situation has put us off.