Go through Dove Cottage and the Wordsworth Museum

Walk past Rydal Mount to Dora's Field and Rydal church

Find Wordsworth's grave in St Oswald's churchyard

Buy a slab of Grasmere gingerbread by the churchyard gate

William and Dorothy Wordsworth lived at Dove Cottage in Grasmere from December 1799 to May 1808 — 'plain living, but high thinking' — and Thomas De Quincey took the house after them. The family later moved to Rydal Mount down the valley, where Wordsworth lived until his death — the Wordsworth Trust bought it in 2026 and it is closed for conservation work; he is buried in Grasmere churchyard, and the gingerbread shop by the churchyard gate sells the gingerbread the village is known for.

Grasmere and Rydal: Wordsworth's Two Houses

Windermere and Grasmere

Ten nights through the Lake District from Windermere to Kendal: Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter, Helvellyn by Striding Edge, Catbells and Buttermere, Scafell Pike above Wast Water, then Ruskin's Brantwood and the Old Man of Coniston.

The Lake District: Windermere, Wasdale and Coniston

Holyhead

Thirteen nights in a loop from Holyhead: walled Conwy, then Hill Top, the Ullswater steamers and Catbells in the Lakes, Malham Cove and Ribblehead in the Dales, and Castleton's caverns in the Peak.

The Lakes, the Dales and the Peak from Holyhead

Walk the earthworks of the Roman fort at Waterhead

See Bridge House standing over Stock Ghyll

Walk up to Stock Ghyll Force behind the town

Catch a launch down Windermere from Waterhead pier

Ambleside stands at the head of Windermere, and on the flat ground at Waterhead the Romans built a fort, usually called Galava, first founded around AD 80 and rebuilt in stone under Hadrian, whose outlines are still visible in the grass by the lake. In the town, Bridge House stands over Stock Ghyll, built more than three hundred years ago, probably as a summer house and apple store for Ambleside Hall, and the beck drops through the woods behind in a series of falls.

Ambleside and the Roman Fort at Waterhead

Drive over Kirkstone Pass from Ambleside to Patterdale

Stop at the Kirkstone Pass Inn near the summit

Look down into Patterdale and Brothers Water from the top

Walk up Red Screes from the pass for the view over both valleys

The A592 crosses Kirkstone at 454m between Patterdale and Windermere, the highest pass in the Lake District with a road over it; the Kirkstone Pass Inn stands near the summit, and the steep climb up from Ambleside that joins it there is called The Struggle. From the top the view north drops into Patterdale with Brothers Water at its centre.

Kirkstone Pass: The Struggle to the Highest Road in the Lakes

Go up onto Striding Edge and traverse the arête

Walk the summit plateau between Lower Man and the top of Striding Edge

Start and finish at Glenridding on Ullswater

Helvellyn is the third-highest point in England, and easier to reach than the two above it, which is why it was one of the earliest fells to become popular with walkers. The east face holds three deep glacial coves and two knife-edged ridges — Striding Edge and Swirral Edge — with Red Tarn in the cove between them. The artist Charles Gough died on Striding Edge in 1805 and is better remembered for that than for anything he painted.

Helvellyn by Striding Edge: The Lake District's Great Ridge Walk

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

Take the steamer from Glenridding to Howtown

Walk back along the shore path from Howtown to Glenridding

Look for daffodils along the Ullswater shore in spring

Ullswater runs about seven miles between the fells and is 63m deep, and the Ullswater 'Steamers' call at Pooley Bridge, Glenridding, Howtown and Aira Force. On the western shore Aira Beck drops 20m into a wooded ravine at Aira Force, on National Trust land; it was on this shore that Dorothy Wordsworth saw the daffodils her brother later wrote about.

Ullswater: The Steamers and Aira Force

Walk up past the old copper and slate workings on the north-east slopes

Reach the summit cairn above Coniston Water

Look down into the Coppermines valley behind the fell

The Old Man rises straight out of Coniston village to 802 metres, with well-marked paths that make it a popular climb. Its north-east slopes are a working record of eight hundred years of copper and slate mining, and the abandoned levels, quarries and spoil tips are as much the point of the walk as the summit. The rock changes as you go: volcanic tuffs across the top, sandstones on the southern slopes.

The Old Man of Coniston: Copper, Slate and a Summit Over the Lake

Walk into the Castlerigg circle and pick out Skiddaw and Blencathra

Take a launch round Derwentwater from Keswick

Walk out to Friars' Crag for the view down the lake

Walk the lakeshore path from Keswick into Borrowdale

Castlerigg stands on a plateau in a natural amphitheatre of fells, a flattened Neolithic circle of glacial boulders from the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, 32.6m across at its widest, with Helvellyn, Skiddaw, Grasmoor and Blencathra in view from inside it; it is the most visited stone circle in Cumbria. A mile and a half away, Keswick sits at the north end of Derwentwater, where launches work round the lake and Friars' Crag looks down it.