The Rough Guide to the Lake District (Travel Guide eBook)

Rough Guides

• Publisher: Rough Guides
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781789196962
• Edition: 8
• Topic: Persönliche Entwicklung
• Subtopic: Reisen

The Rough Guide to the Lake District Make the most of your time on Earth with the ultimate travel guides.
World-renowned 'tell it like it is' travel guide. Discover the Lake District with this comprehensive and entertaining travel guide, packed with practical information and honest recommendations by our independent experts. Whether you plan to take a cruise on Lake Windermere, hike the Cumbria Way or sample the region's renowned restaurants and pubs, The Rough Guide to the Lake District will help you discover the best places to explore, eat, drink, shop and sleep along the way. Features of this travel guide the Lake District:
- Detailed regional coverage: provides practical information for every kind of trip, from off-the-beaten-track adventures to chilled-out breaks in popular tourist areas
- Honest and independent reviews: written with Rough Guides' trademark blend of humour, honesty and expertise, our writers will help you make the most from your trip to the Lake District
- Meticulous mapping: practical full-colour maps, with clearly numbered, colour-coded keys. Find your way around Keswick, Ullswater and many more locations without needing to get online
- Fabulous full-colour photography: features inspirational colour photography, including the Langdale Valley and Coniston Water
- Time-saving itineraries: carefully planned routes will help inspire and inform your on-the-road experiences
- Things not to miss: Rough Guides' rundown of Grasmere, Borrowdale, Cartmel and Honister's best sights and top experiences
- Travel tips and info: packed with essential pre-departure information including getting around, accommodation, food and drink, health, the media, festivals, sports and outdoor activities, culture and etiquette, shopping and more
- Background information: comprehensive ' Contexts' chapter provides fascinating insights into the Lake District, with coverage of history, religion, ethnic groups, environment, wildlife and books, plus a handy language section and glossary
- Covers: Windermere; Grasmere and the central fells; Coniston Water; Hawkshead and the south; Keswick; Derwent Water and the north; The western fells and valleys; Ullswater; Out of the National Park You may also be interested in: The Rough Guide to Yorkshire, The Rough Guide to the Cotswolds, The Rough Guide to Bath, Bristol and Somerset About Rough Guides: Rough Guides have been inspiring travellers for over 35 years, with over 30 million copies sold globally. Synonymous with practical travel tips, quality writing and a trustworthy 'tell it like it is' ethos, the Rough Guides list includes more than 260 travel guides to 120+ destinations, gift-books and phrasebooks.

Loop Images Ltd / Alamy

BOATS FOR HIRE ON WINDERMERE

Windermere

Windermere town

Bowness and the lake

Brockhole

Blackwell

Lakeside and around

The Winster and Lyth valleys

Ambleside and around

Troutbeck Valley

Staveley and around

Helena Smith/Rough Guides

THE VILLAGE GREEN IN ELTERWATER

Grasmere and the central fells

Grasmere and around

Rydal Mount

Rydal and Rydal Water

Skelwith Bridge and Little Langdale

Elterwater and around

Great Langdale

Grasmere and the central fells

Grasmere – lake and village – is the traditional dividing line between the north and south Lakes, between the heavily touristed Windermere region and the more rugged fells on either side of Keswick. Rather than for its own charms (which are considerable), Grasmere owes its wild popularity to its most famous former resident, William Wordsworth, who first moved here in 1799 and lived in a variety of houses in the vicinity until his death in 1850. Two in particular are open to the public: Dove Cottage, where he first set up home in the Lakes with his sister Dorothy; and Rydal Mount, on nearby Rydal Water, the comfortable family home to which he moved at the height of his fame.

The museum and interpretation centre at Dove Cottage is the Lake District’s most important cultural attraction, an essential visit for anyone interested in the English Romantics. It’s centred on Wordsworth, of course, but the influence of other famous literary names hangs heavily on Grasmere, too, notably those of Thomas De Quincey, who lived here for more than twenty years and married a local girl; and of the dissolute Coleridges – father Samuel Taylor and son Hartley, whose separate periods of residence often tried the Wordsworths’ patience.

Just a few miles west of Grasmere lie the central fells, including some of the Lake District’s most famous peaks and valleys. Minor roads from Grasmere and Ambleside twist into the superb valleys of Great and Little Langdale, overlooked by the prominent rocky summits of hikers’ favourites like the Langdale Pikes, Bowfell and Crinkle Crags. It’s not all hard going though: there are easier walks to tarns and viewpoints in the bucolic surroundings of Easedale and Little Langdale, while hamlets such as Skelwith Bridge and Elterwater provide classic inns and country B&Bs for an isolated night’s stay.

Grasmere and around

Four miles northwest of Ambleside, the pretty village of Grasmere consists of an intimate cluster of grey-stone houses beside the babbling River Rothay. With a permanent population of under a thousand, and just a handful of roads which meet at a central green, it would be the archetypal, slow-paced, rustic village were it not for the Wordsworth connection – Dove Cottage, home to the poet and his sister Dorothy, sits just outside Grasmere. The presence of one of the country’s key literary sites certainly brings in the crowds and tour buses and accounts for the assorted gift shops, galleries, cafés and hotels. But even in the poet’s day curious visitors to Grasmere were common, and even before Wordsworth put down roots here, the “white village” on the water in this “unsuspected paradise” had entranced the poet Thomas Gray (of “Elegy” fame), whose journal of his ground-breaking tour of the Lakes did much to bring the region to wider attention.

Look beyond the crowds, however, or come out of season, and Grasmere slowly seduces, whether it’s for walks by the alluring lake or rambles among the surrounding crags and fells. These days, the village is also a rather upmarket retreat, with a fair choice of boutique accommodation – ideal for a pampered weekend away, if not the sort of thing of which the plain-living Wordsworth would have approved.

Craig Roberts / Alamy

THE GARDENS AT RYDAL HALL

Highlights

Visiting Wordsworth’s grave, Grasmere One of England’s most famous literary pilgrimages is to the simple grave of the poet Wordsworth.

Dove Cottage, Grasmere It’s an obvious tourist attraction, but you shouldn’t miss Wordsworth’s first home in the Lake District.

Rydal Hall and Rydal Water Lovely gardens, woodland walks and a top tearoom, followed by a gentle stroll around a pretty lake.

Cakes and walks at Skelwith Bridge Indulge your sweet tooth at fabulous Chesters By The River after viewing the local waterfall.

Elterwater Stay the night in one of the Lake District’s most attractive hamlets.

Walking in Great Langdale Routes up the famous Langdale Pikes, Crinkle Crags and Bowfell could keep serious hikers occupied for a week.

Old Dungeon Ghyll After a day on the fells, recover with a beer or two in the stone-flagged hikers’ bar of this atmospheric Langdale inn.

HIGHLIGHTS ARE MARKED ON THE MAP

St Oswald’s church

Grasmere, LA22 9SW • Daily 9am–4pm; open later in school summer hols •

07305 777113,

stoswaldsgrasmere.uk

The main point of pilgrimage in Grasmere is the medieval church of St Oswald’s, around which the river makes a sinuous curl. Here, beneath the yews in the churchyard, are the grave...