Is Lake District The Best Place In The UK?

Last year, I decided to visit England’s largest National Park. A place with stunning lakes, impressive mountains and scenic valleys. In other words, the beautiful Lake District.

Some people like to create rankings of different places to visit. I’m not a big fan of this because it’s so difficult to compare! We’re all different people, enjoy various things and connected with distinctive areas. This is like the famous “sell me your pen”. You can’t just talk about the pen functionalities. You need to ask questions to the potential buyer to understand the profile.

From my perspective, Lake District is one of the best places I’ve ever been in the UK and if you push me very hard, I’d perhaps say that it belongs to my top ten. Not sure in what order but certainly sharing special spots with Snowdonia and the Cotswolds just to name a few.

What is Lake District?

It’s a region and national park in Cumbria, northwest England. A World Heritage Site. It’s also the most visited national park in the UK.  It covers 2,362 square kilometres, 912 square miles and 236,234 hectares. From West to East it’s 36 miles (58 km) and from North to South it’s 40 miles (64 km). The highest mountain is Scafell Pike at 3210 feet (978 metres), closely followed by Scafell, Helvellyn, Skiddaw, Great End and Bowfell. There are 16 lakes where the largest ones are Windermere (14.8 square kilometres) and Ullswater (8.9 square kilometres). These are the 2 I visited on my road trip and logically many towns surrounding these lakes. Let’s talk about these 2.

Windermere Lake

This is not just the largest lake in Lake District but also in England. It’s 10.5 miles (18 km) long. It’s also the name of the town, which is very close to the lake. In fact, there’s 2 towns with similar name: Bowness-on-Windermere and Windermere. Bowness is the busiest place as it has many cruise boats leaving from there. I spent couple of nights in Windermere and also took a boat from Bowness to enjoy an afternoon in the beautiful Ambleside at the north end of the lake.

There’s a lot of things to do in these places. Water will be in every sentence, so if you enjoy cruises, rowing, kayaking or swimming, take your chance! However, you can certainly walk and hike as there’s many routes and scenic views. If you enjoy cycling, this is also a place to do it. You can take a boat and bring your bike with you.

Ullswater Lake

This amazing lake is ideal if you like mountains and hills. It’s the second largest in England and it’s 7.5 miles long. There are places like Glenridding, Patterdale, Pooley Bridge and Martindale worth exploring. I personally enjoyed very much the iconic Pooley Bridge as it’s a colourful village with an interesting historic centre, beautiful houses and a variety of pubs. Very hard to park but hey, plan ahead your trip! I also enjoyed Aira Force, an outstanding waterfall at worth stopping for picnic. It’s just that feeling of peace that only nature can give you.