The Lake District: Windermere, Wasdale and Coniston

Editor's note

Two nights by Windermere, England's largest natural lake at about 10.5 miles long. Take a cruise, or kayak or paddleboard from Bowness, and climb Orrest Head, where Alfred Wainwright first saw the Lake District in 1930. At Near Sawrey, Hill Top is kept as Beatrix Potter left it, and the gallery in Hawkshead, the village where Wordsworth went to grammar school, holds her original drawings. In Grasmere, go through Dove Cottage, where William and Dorothy Wordsworth lived from 1799 to 1808, then Rydal Mount down the valley. Wordsworth is buried in St Oswald's churchyard, and Grasmere gingerbread is sold by its gate.

Editor's note

Two nights by Ullswater. Drive over Kirkstone Pass, at 454m the highest pass in the Lakes with a road over it, and walk up Red Screes from the top. Take the steamer from Glenridding to Howtown and walk back along the shore, and walk up to Aira Force, where the beck drops 20m into a wooded ravine; in spring, look for the daffodils Dorothy Wordsworth saw along this shore. Helvellyn by Striding Edge is a full mountain day from Glenridding, spring to autumn only: along the knife-edged arête, across the summit plateau and down Swirral Edge past Red Tarn.

Editor's note

Two nights at Keswick, at the head of Derwentwater. Castlerigg, a Neolithic circle of glacial boulders, stands in a ring of fells with Skiddaw and Blencathra in view from inside it. Take a launch round the lake and walk out to Friar's Crag. Catbells, only 451m, is the family fell Wainwright called one of the great favourites: walk up from the shore, carry on over Hause Gate to Maiden Moor and take the launch back from Hawse End. Over the Honister Pass, one in four at its steepest, go underground in the slate mine at the summit, then walk the path round Buttermere and through the rock tunnel under Hassness.

Editor's note

Two nights in Wasdale, where England's highest mountain and deepest lake share one view. Climb Scafell Pike, 978m, from Wasdale Head between spring and autumn. Stand on the shore of Wast Water, 79m deep, where the Screes fall 600m into the water, and walk to St Olaf's church under the yews. The Wasdale Head Inn is where British rock climbing began. On the coast, Ravenglass is the only coastal village in the national park: see the Roman bath house known as Walls Castle, visit Muncaster Castle above the Esk, and ride the 15-inch-gauge railway seven miles up Eskdale to Dalegarth.

Editor's note

Two nights at Coniston. John Ruskin bought Brantwood above the lake in 1871, reportedly without having seen it, and lived there for the rest of his life; look out from his study window, then ride the steam yacht Gondola, launched in 1859 and still under steam. The Ruskin Museum in the village tells the Bluebird story. The Old Man of Coniston rises straight out of the village, a spring-to-autumn walk up past eight hundred years of copper and slate workings on its north-east slopes to the summit cairn above Coniston Water, with the Coppermines valley behind.