The Lake District, England

Windermere is the largest natural lake in England at over 10 miles long and a mile wide. It is one of the most popular places to visit in the Lake District and has the towns of Windermere, Bowness and Ambleside on it's banks, with many hotels and restaurants. Winderemere is the largest of these towns, popular in Victorian times because it was the arrival point for most visitors and the location of a main railway station, which was opened in 1847. All make a good base for exploring the other smaller lakes or for boat-trips and hiking.

The lake is just a short walk from the town of Windermere and pleasant walks can be taken along the lake edge, near the piers and boats for hire, where Mute swans glide and waddle past hoping for food from the many tourists. Ferries can be taken to Sawrey and Hawkshead or you can go to the Windermere Steamboat Museum, or the World of Beatrix Potter Attraction, if it is raining.

Windermere has the biggest selection of hotels, shops, restaurants, cafes and bars in the area.

There are many wonderful old hotels in the Lake district. Here are few of my favourites:

Applegarth Hotel in Windermere. A great location for the town. Quite old fashioned but very comfortable. A good restaurant and there are plenty more good restaurants nearby in the town.

Bridge Inn, Buttermere. Wonderful location. Not much more than a couple of pubs, a lake and some sheep. Nice easy walk round the lake and reasonable packed lunch from the pub/hotel. Either of the pubs would be good for a night or two. The Bridge Inn does a good "5-course" dinner or bar-food. Not much else to do apart from the pubs though.

Wordsworth Hotel, Grasmere. Posh and old-fashioned. 5-course dinner and pleasant bar etc. right in the centre, with plenty to see without using the car.

Ivy House Hotel, Hawkshead. Very small, friendly, Georgian, Grade 2 listed, but comfortable with great food.

None of these are modern hotels, but they were all comfortable and charming.

There are plenty more to choose from though.

For more European hotel recommendations and reviews...

If you want to get away from the tourists Buttermere is an excellent location; quieter than Windermere and extremely beautiful.

Grasmere and Ambleside are more popular spots with plenty to keep the tourists amused, especially if you have finished your day's walking or prefer to spend time in shops, cafes and pubs, but it is worth visiting several lakes, towns and villages because they all have their own character.

Here is the full list of lakes:

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) is perhaps the most famous British poet and certainly the most famous from the Lake District. He was born in Cockermouth, Cumberland in the Lake District and closely associated with the English Romantic Movement after he and Samuel Taylor Coleridge published Lyrical Ballads in 1798 (featuring Coleridge's "Ancient Mariner.")

The inspiration for much of William Wordsworth's work was the beautiful landscape and nature in the Lake District. He lost his parents while still a young child: his mother at the age of eight and his father when he was thirteen. He was able to attend school and gained a place at St. John's Cambridge University and had his first sonnet published the same year in 1791. One of his early works was inspired by an affair with a French girl, Annette Vallon, during a vacation in France and their illegitimate daughter Anne Caroline.

Wordsworth had been separated from his beloved neurotic sister Dorothy as a child and much of his later life was dedicated to her, spending the winter of 1798-99 with her and Coleridge in Germany where he wrote the "Lucy" poems. He moved Dove Cottage, Grasmere in the Lake District on his return and in 1802 married Mary Hutchinson and together they cared for William's sister Dorothy for the remaining 20 years of her life.

In 1843 he was appointed as England's poet laureate and he died on April 23, 1850.

William Wordsworth wrote many sonnets, but the most famous and most often quoted is "I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud" (so I shall do so again):

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.