The Lake District is one of the most popular regions for visitors . . . and no wonder. It is just so blindingly beautiful.
It has inspired poets and writers for centuries. In fact it gave its name to a group of 19th century writers, the Lake Poets, most prominently William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey. But others such as Beatrix Potter and John Ruskin have drawn inspiration from this wonderful visual cocktail of lakes, woodlands and fells.
I remember as a kid at school I had a box of “Lakeland” coloured pencils, made in Keswick, and the photograph on the box fascinated me: The blues, browns and purples of the towering glacier-gouged mountains cradling gentle lake-studded valleys instilled a desire to see it for myself. It took a while – 35 years – but eventually I got there and it was even more majestic, more inspiring, more beautiful than I expected.
The Lake District has an amazing range of scenic beauty. The mountains were created by volcanic eruption 450 million years ago. In the centre there’s the rugged crown of Scafell Pike, the highest in England. Not far away are Saddleback and Skiddaw, almost the same height, but rounded and smoothed by towering glaciers during the Ice Age less than a million years ago. Those same glaciers carved out the huge valleys that formed the beds of the lakes.
Nowhere else in England do you get this contrast of so much water with dramatic scenery. It’s what make the Lakes District such a popular tourist spot.
Snaptrip, an accommodation booking site specialising in cottage type accom, recently published a guide to their top 10 Lakeland views. If you are planning a visit there, haul a good camera along and see if you can capture some of the same shots.
I particularly loved the pic of the colourful rowing boats on Lake Grassmere. That’s a definite look-in when next I get there.
Go visit the blog post for yourself and start revising the bucket-list.
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