Walk the Georgian grid and the harbour at Whitehaven

Walk up to the cliffs at Kells to see the winding engine house of Haig Pit, Cumbria's last deep coal mine, closed in 1986

Dip your boots in the sea on St Bees beach and start the Coast to Coast

Walk the cliff path round St Bees Head to the lighthouse

The Lowther family bought the Whitehaven estate in 1630 and built the port, the coal mines and, in the 18th century, a Georgian planned town that has left more than 170 listed buildings; the pits ran out under the sea. Four miles south, walkers dip their boots in the Irish Sea on St Bees beach to start Wainwright's Coast to Coast, then climb straight onto St Bees Head.

Whitehaven and St Bees: A Planned Georgian Port and the Coast to Coast Start

Walk the circuit of Buttermere, about four and a half miles

Drive or ride the Honister Pass, one in four at its steepest

Go underground on a tour of Honister slate mine

Walk through the rock tunnel on the lake path under Hassness

The B5289 crosses Honister Pass at 356m between Seatoller in Borrowdale and Gatesgarth at the southern end of Buttermere, with gradients of up to one in four and a working slate mine at the summit. Buttermere itself is a small lake ringed by fells with a level path all the way round.

Buttermere and the Honister Pass

Ride the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, the seven-mile 15-inch-gauge line from Ravenglass to Dalegarth, which W. J. Bassett-Lowke and Robert Proctor-Mitchell began converting from 3ft gauge in 1915

See the Roman bath house at Ravenglass, known as Walls Castle

Visit Muncaster Castle and its gardens above the Esk

Ravenglass is the only coastal village in the Lake District National Park, and the Romans left a bath house here, known locally as Walls Castle, one of the largest surviving Roman structures in England. From the station the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway runs seven miles up the valley on a 15-inch gauge, and Muncaster Castle stands in its woods above the estuary.

Ravenglass: The Eskdale Railway and Muncaster

Climb Scafell Pike (978m), England's highest mountain, from Wasdale Head

Stand on the shore of Wast Water, England's deepest lake at 79m, where the Screes fall 600m into the water and a 2007 poll chose the view as Britain's favourite

Have a drink at the Wasdale Head Inn, the birthplace of British rock climbing

Walk to St Olaf's at Wasdale Head, England's smallest parish church

Wasdale holds England's highest mountain and its deepest lake in the same view: Scafell Pike at 978m, and Wast Water at 79m deep, with the Screes falling 600m straight into it. The Wasdale Head Inn at the head of the valley is where British rock climbing began.

Wasdale: Scafell Pike, Wast Water and the Birthplace of Rock Climbing

Walk up Catbells from the Derwentwater shore

Pick out Bassenthwaite, Skiddaw and Keswick to the north and Borrowdale to the south

Carry on over Hause Gate along the ridge to Maiden Moor

Take the Derwentwater launch from Hawse End back to Keswick

Catbells, only 451m high, is the last fell on the ridge that divides Derwentwater from the Newlands valley, three miles from Keswick. Its shape is so distinctive from Friars' Crag on the far shore that people see it and decide to climb it. Alfred Wainwright called it one of the great favourites, a family fell where grandmothers and infants can climb the heights together, which makes it a classic first fell.

Catbells: The Family Fell Above Derwentwater

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.

Hardknott and Wrynose: England's Joint-Steepest Road

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.

Keswick: Castlerigg, Derwentwater and Friars' Crag

Walk the Tweed from Peebles up to Neidpath Castle

Watch the Tweed at Peebles, one of the great salmon rivers of Britain

Ride the Glentress trails in the Tweed Valley forest

Walk the gardens at Kailzie down the valley

Peebles sits on the Tweed, one of the great salmon rivers of Britain, in an old woollen-mill valley, with the tower house of Neidpath Castle above a bend in the river west of the town and the Tweed Valley Forest Park on the hills around it.

Peebles and the Tweed: Neidpath, Kailzie and the Salmon River

Climb to Criccieth Castle and its twin-towered gatehouse

Walk both beaches on either side of the headland

Visit the Lloyd George Museum at Llanystumdwy

Eat an ice cream from Cadwaladers on the front

Criccieth Castle stands on a headland between two beaches. Llywelyn ap Iorwerth began it in the 1230s and his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffudd extended it; Edward I took it in 1283 and heightened its towers, and it was captured again in 1404 in Owain Glyndŵr's revolt. David Lloyd George grew up at Llanystumdwy nearby.