Walk up to the ruins of Kendal Castle above the Kent

Buy a bar of Kendal Mint Cake in the town that invented it

Kendal's grey limestone buildings gave it the name the Auld Grey Town, and its high street still has the narrow yards running off it that were laid out for a chartered market town. The castle on the drumlin above, built in the 13th century and later owned by the Parr family, is now a ruin, and the town is the home of Kendal Mint Cake, carried up mountains ever since.

Kendal: The Auld Grey Town, Its Castle and Its Mint Cake

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

Walk across Morecambe Bay from Arnside to Kents Bank with the King's Guide to the Sands

Watch the tide come in at the Arnside Viaduct, where the bore runs up the Kent

Crossing the sands of Morecambe Bay is an ancient and dangerous route, and a royally appointed guide leads people over: the King's Guide to the Sands, Queen's Guide in a queen's reign. Cedric Robinson held the post from 1963 to 2019, and Michael Wilson, a local fisherman, succeeded him; the guide is paid £20 a year and has the use of the Guide's Cottage at Kents Bank. Walks go about once a fortnight from spring to autumn, usually from Arnside over to Kents Bank, fording the River Kent on the way. At Arnside the railway crosses the Kent on its viaduct of 1857, where the tidal bore comes up the estuary.

Morecambe Bay: Walking the Sands With the King's Guide

Go through Hill Top at Near Sawrey, kept as Beatrix Potter left it

Browse Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop in William Heelis's old solicitor's office in Hawkshead

Walk the alleys of Hawkshead and see the grammar school Wordsworth attended

Walk round Esthwaite Water between the two villages

Beatrix Potter owned the 17th-century farmhouse of Hill Top at Near Sawrey and left it to the National Trust; it is shown as she herself would have known it, with the garden kept in the style of her illustrations. Two miles north, Hawkshead is a village of whitewashed alleys where Wordsworth went to grammar school, and her husband William Heelis's old solicitor's office, the Beatrix Potter Gallery until 2022, is now Tabitha Twitchit's Bookshop.

Hawkshead and Hill Top: Beatrix Potter's Farm

Listen for booming bitterns from the reedbed hides in spring

Look for bearded tits on the grit trays in autumn

Watch marsh harriers quartering the reeds

Walk over to the saltmarsh hides on the bay side

Leighton Moss, behind Morecambe Bay, is an RSPB reserve known for its breeding bitterns, marsh harriers and bearded tits, with otters and red deer in the reeds; six booming male bitterns were counted in 2021. The RSPB also protects a stretch of Morecambe Bay saltmarsh here where avocets feed. In spring the booming carries across the reedbed, a sound like blowing over the top of a bottle.

Leighton Moss: Bitterns in the Biggest Reedbed in the North-West

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

Cross Hardknott Pass at its one-in-three gradient by car or bike, not in a motorhome; leave the van in Eskdale or Little Langdale

Walk round Mediobogdum and find its parade ground and bath house

Carry on over Wrynose Pass to the Three Shire Stone

Stop at the top for the view down Eskdale to the sea

The single-track road from Eskdale over Hardknott and Wrynose to Little Langdale is the most direct route across the Lake District and shares the title of steepest road in England with Rosedale Chimney Bank, at one in three. On the shoulder of Hardknott the Romans built Mediobogdum, on the road between Galava at Ambleside and Glannoventa at Ravenglass; its walls stand above the valley, with a bath house below that has a rare circular sweating room, and a levelled parade ground above that is reckoned the finest surviving in England.