Go to the Clitheroe Food Festival, held on one Saturday in early August

Book one of Bowland Brewery's tours at Holmes Mill in Clitheroe, run on set Fridays

Visit Whalley Abbey, the ruined Cistercian abbey in the Ribble Valley

The Ribble Valley below Pendle is known for its food. In Clitheroe, Bowland Brewery brews at Holmes Mill and the Clitheroe Food Festival fills the town for one Saturday each August, and a few miles down the valley are the ruins of Whalley Abbey, the Cistercian house on the Calder.

Clitheroe and Whalley: The Ribble Valley's Food and Abbey

Climb Pendle Hill (557m), where George Fox had his vision in 1652 that founded the Quakers

Climb from Barley to the summit, as Richard Towneley and Henry Power did in 1661 when they carried a barometer up the hill to measure air pressure at different heights

Find the Eye of God on the tower of St Mary's in Newchurch-in-Pendle

Find out what happened to the twelve accused of witchcraft in 1612

Pendle Hill, 557m, is tied to three events of the 17th century. In 1612 twelve people from the country round it were accused of killing ten by witchcraft; ten were hanged, nine of them after the trials at Lancaster. In 1652 George Fox climbed the hill and had the vision that led to the Quakers, and in 1661 Richard Towneley carried out barometer experiments on it. In Newchurch-in-Pendle, the Demdike family's village, St Mary's church has the Eye of God built into its tower, and a grave by the porch carved with a skull and crossbones is said by local legend to be that of Alice Nutter, one of the accused.

Pendle Hill: George Fox's Vision and the Pendle Witches

Drive the single road through the Trough of Bowland

Stop at the top of the pass between the two valleys

Go to Dunsop Bridge, near the geographic centre of Great Britain

Look for hen harriers, the emblem of the AONB, over the Bowland fells

The Forest of Bowland was made an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty in 1964, and its upland core is very sparsely populated; the Bowland Fells are a Special Protection Area for breeding merlin and hen harrier. The Trough of Bowland is the pass through the middle of it, linking the valley of the Marshaw Wyre with Langden Brook and splitting the upland core in two. By one reckoning the geographic centre of Great Britain lies at the Whitendale Hanging Stones, about four miles north of Dunsop Bridge.

The Trough of Bowland: The Pass Through the Empty Quarter

Walk up to Malham Cove, the 80m curved limestone cliff, and look up at its face from the beck

Walk into Gordale Scar and look up at the falls

Walk the limestone pavement on top of the Cove

Follow the beck to Janet's Foss on the way round

Malham Cove is a curved limestone cliff 80m high with a pavement of clints and grikes along its top, left when the ice went. A mile east, Gordale Scar cuts into the hills as a gorge with waterfalls in its throat, and Janet's Foss drops into a pool on Gordale Beck, on the path from Malham village to the Scar.

Malham: The Cove, Gordale Scar and the Limestone Pavement

Tour Skipton Castle and its Conduit Court

Walk to Bolton Priory and cross the stepping stones

Ride the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Steam Railway

Skipton Castle, above the canal basin at the gateway to the Dales, is one of the best-preserved medieval castles in England. Six miles east in Wharfedale, the Augustinian priory at Bolton Abbey stands beside the river with its nave still in use as the parish church, and upstream the whole Wharfe is forced through a rock channel a few feet wide known as the Strid.

Skipton and Bolton Abbey: A Castle, a Priory and the Strid

Visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, the home of the Brontë family from 1820

Hike to Top Withens, the ruined moorland farmhouse long associated with Wuthering Heights

See from Market Street the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton, where the four Brontë children who became writers were born

Ride the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway to Haworth

The Brontës moved to the parsonage at Haworth in 1820, and it is now the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Across the moor above the village, the ruined farmhouse of Top Withens has long been linked with Wuthering Heights: the house itself was nothing like the one in the novel, but its moorland setting may have been in Emily's mind. All four of the Brontë children who became writers were born before the move, in Thornton, and the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway still runs steam up to Haworth.

Haworth: The Brontë Parsonage and Top Withens

Tour Lancaster Castle, where the Pendle witches were tried in 1612, and its Georgian Crown Court

Climb to the Ashton Memorial in Williamson Park

Walk Morecambe promenade and find the Eric Morecambe statue

Look across Morecambe Bay to the Lakeland fells

Lancaster Castle was first used as a prison in 1196 and was a prison again as recently as 2011, which is why so little of it has ever been dug: the Pendle witches were tried here in 1612 and hanged on the moor above. On the hill behind, the Ashton Memorial stands over Williamson Park, and Morecambe looks out across the bay to the Lakeland fells with Eric Morecambe in bronze on the promenade.

Lancaster and Morecambe: The Witch Trials and the Bay

Take a cruise on Windermere, the largest lake in England

Kayak or paddleboard on the lake from Bowness

Climb Orrest Head above Windermere, the first fell Wainwright ever climbed, for the view that started him

Work out why Windermere is not really a mere, despite its name

Windermere is the largest lake in England by length, area and volume — 10.5 miles from Lakeside, 11.23 if you count from Newby Bridge, a mile across at its widest and 64 metres deep. It was Winander Mere until at least the 19th century, and despite the 'mere' it is not one: a mere is broad and shallow, and Windermere is deep enough to have a thermocline. Above the town of Windermere is Orrest Head, the first fell Alfred Wainwright ever climbed — 'our first ascent in Lakeland, our first sight of mountains in tumultuous array across glittering waters, our awakening to beauty.'

Windermere: England's Longest Lake

Climb Old Pale, the high point of the northern Mid Cheshire Ridge, for the view out over the Cheshire plain

Walk round Blakemere Moss, the kilometre-long lake in the middle of the forest

Find Black Lake, a quaking bog floating on the water, and look for the white-faced darter in summer

Find out what forest law meant here, and why little changed until the Crown took the forest in 1812

Delamere — 'forest of the lakes' — is what is left of the great Forests of Mara and Mondrem that once covered this part of Cheshire, held under forest law for centuries until the Crown took ownership in 1812 and the old ordinances were abolished; the Forestry Commission took it over in 1924. At 972 hectares it is the largest woodland in the county, with about 750,000 visitors a year. Old Pale is the high point of the northern end of the Mid Cheshire Ridge; Blakemere Moss is a lake about a kilometre long in the middle of the trees; and Black Lake is a rare quaking bog, a schwingmoor, protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and part of a Ramsar site, where the white-faced darter, a dragonfly rare in Britain, is found.