The Lakes, the Dales and the Peak from Holyhead

Editor's note

One night in Conwy to begin. Edward I raised the castle and the town walls as one project between 1283 and 1289, to the design of James of St George, and both still stand almost complete. Walk the circuit of the walls round the medieval town; anyone born inside them is nicknamed a Jackdaw, after the birds that live there. Tour Plas Mawr, the Elizabethan townhouse of 1576, and find the smallest house in Great Britain on the quay, 1.8m wide.

Editor's note

One night by Morecambe Bay. Leighton Moss, behind the bay, is an RSPB reserve for bitterns, marsh harriers and bearded tits, with otters and red deer in the reeds. In spring the bitterns boom across the reedbed, a sound like blowing over the top of a bottle, and avocets feed on the saltmarsh by the bay-side hides. In Lancaster, tour the castle, a prison from 1196 until 2011, and the courtroom where the Pendle witches were tried in 1612. Morecambe promenade, with Eric Morecambe in bronze, looks across the bay to the Lakeland fells.

Editor's note

Two nights between Windermere and Grasmere. Cruise the lake, about 10.5 miles long, or paddle out from Bowness, and climb Orrest Head, 238m, where Alfred Wainwright first saw the Lake District in 1930. Hill Top at Near Sawrey is shown as Beatrix Potter knew it, and her original drawings are two miles north in the Hawkshead gallery. William and Dorothy Wordsworth lived at Dove Cottage in Grasmere from 1799 to 1808; go through it, find his grave in St Oswald's churchyard and buy gingerbread by the gate. Rydal Mount, his later home, has a garden to walk.

Editor's note

One night on Ullswater, about seven miles long and 63m deep. Take the steamer from Glenridding to Howtown and walk back along the shore, then climb to Aira Force, where the beck drops 20m into a wooded ravine. Dorothy Wordsworth saw the daffodils her brother wrote about on this shore, and they still flower here in spring. Kirkstone Pass, at 454m, carries the highest road over a pass in the Lake District, from Ambleside to Patterdale; the old way up is called The Struggle. From the inn near the top, look down on Brothers Water, or walk up Red Screes.

Editor's note

Two nights at Keswick, at the head of Derwentwater. Two miles out of town, walk into Castlerigg, a Neolithic circle of glacial boulders ringed by fells, and pick out Skiddaw and Blencathra. Climb Catbells, 451m, which Wainwright called a family fell, carry on over Hause Gate to Maiden Moor, and take the launch back to Keswick from Hawse End. On the other day, cross Honister Pass, one in four at its steepest, and go underground in the slate mine at the summit. Then walk the four and a half miles round Buttermere, through the rock tunnel under Hassness.

Editor's note

One night in Wensleydale. At Hawes, watch Wensleydale cheese being made at the creamery, which has made it since 1897, and visit the Dales Countryside Museum in the old station. Walk to Hardraw Force, a single 100ft drop claimed as England's highest unbroken waterfall above ground, and look into the Buttertubs, 20m limestone potholes beside the road to Thwaite and Muker. At Aysgarth, walk between the Upper, Middle and Lower Falls on the Ure, then tour Bolton Castle, where Mary, Queen of Scots was held after fleeing to England.

Editor's note

Two nights around Malham. Walk up to Malham Cove, a curved limestone cliff 80m high, and out across the clints and grikes of the pavement on top. Follow the beck past Janet's Foss into Gordale Scar and look up at the falls in its throat. Skipton Castle, above the canal basin, is one of the best-preserved medieval castles in England; up Wharfedale, cross the stepping stones at Bolton Priory and walk Strid Wood to the Strid. Then stand under the 24 arches of the Ribblehead viaduct on the Settle–Carlisle line, and ride a train across it.

Editor's note

Two nights between Castleton and Hathersage. Walk into Peak Cavern, the largest cave entrance in Britain, where ropemakers lived and worked until 1915. Climb Mam Tor, 517m, round its Iron Age ramparts; the hill's shale has been slipping for 4,000 years and closed the road below in 1979, and the broken tarmac can still be walked. Blue John, the banded purple and yellow fluorspar, is found nowhere else in the world; buy a piece in Castleton. Above Hathersage, walk or climb under Stanage Edge and find North Lees Hall, the model for Thornfield in Jane Eyre.

Editor's note

One night at Llandudno, the last before the crossing home. The Great Orme Tramway, the only cable-hauled street tramway left in Britain, still runs its original cars up the 207m headland, where herds of wild Kashmiri goats live. Walk the 700m pier of 1877, the longest in Wales, and find the White Rabbit, a nod to Alice Liddell's family holidays here. Above the Conwy valley, Bodnant Garden covers 80 acres of Italianate terraces, the Dell and woodland; its Laburnum Arch, the longest in the UK, flowers in May and June.