Windermere

Boats link the piers at Bowness, Ambleside and Lakeside along a lake about 18km long. The fells close in as you head to the northern end, and the view changes. A ticket for a day of hopping on and off lets you step ashore and walk at each pier.

A low hill reached by a 20-minute woodland climb from across Windermere station, and the first fell climbed, in 1930, by Wainwright of the walking guides. The top lays out the whole lake and the line of fells beyond. It suits a climb straight off the train.

An Arts and Crafts house that architect Baillie Scott built around 1900 as a holiday home for a Manchester brewer. The lake lies below the windows of the white drawing room. Unlike most grand houses, it invites you to sit in the chairs in each room.

The farmhouse in Near Sawrey village that Beatrix Potter bought in 1905 with royalties from Peter Rabbit, and scenes in her books came from this house and garden. It is small, so entry is limited by time slot. Take the ferry across the lake from Bowness.

Opened in 2019 in new lakeside boat sheds, it keeps steamers and yachts that once worked the lake, afloat and indoors. One steam yacht was the model for a boat in Swallows and Amazons. In summer an old steam launch takes visitors round the lake.

A tiny 17th-century stone house built right on a bridge over a beck in Ambleside, with one room up and one down. The story goes round that it was put on the bridge to dodge land tax. A whole family is said to have lived inside it once.

The small Grasmere house where the poet Wordsworth lived with his sister from 1799 to 1808 and wrote much of his best verse. A guide leads you through the cramped rooms, and the museum next door shows manuscripts. His grave lies in Grasmere churchyard.

A short steam line between Lakeside pier at the lake's southern end and Haverthwaite, running through spring, summer and autumn. Trains leave to meet the cruise boats, so boat and train link up neatly. The track follows the River Leven through woods.

A tarn a 19th-century landowner made by damming several small pools into one, ringed by pine woods. A level path goes all the way round, fine for pushchairs and wheelchairs. Beatrix Potter bought the land and passed half of it to the National Trust.

A mock-medieval castle that a retired surgeon built in the 1840s on the west shore of the lake. A 16-year-old Beatrix Potter spent a summer here with her family. Boats run from Ambleside to the jetty below the castle, easier than walking.

The Lake District National Park visitor centre on the shore between Windermere and Ambleside, its gardens and lawns sloping to the water. A treetop rope course runs through the woods. Lake cruisers call at the Brockhole jetty, making a boat arrival simple.

An indoor attraction in Bowness building scenes from Peter Rabbit and the other tales with life-size figures and sets. Pitched at small children's eye level, it takes about an hour. Unlike Hill Top's garden paths, it is all under a roof, rain or shine.

A huge cavern left by old slate quarrying on Loughrigg Fell, its floor flooded so you step in on stepping stones. A little further, Loughrigg Terrace opens with Grasmere lake below. The round walk from Rydal village takes about two hours.

Critic John Ruskin's house above Coniston Water's eastern side, where he lived from 1872 until his death. From his study the Old Man of Coniston rises beyond the water. A launch from Coniston village drops you at the house's own jetty.

A Neolithic ring of standing stones in a hilltop field east of Keswick, among the oldest in Britain. High fells encircle it, like standing at the centre of a stage. There is no fence and it is free, so you can wander in at any hour.

A waterfall in a wooded ravine above Ullswater's northern side, dropping beneath a stone footbridge, in National Trust care. Daffodils on the nearby lakeshore inspired Wordsworth's Daffodils poem. Stone bridges above and below give two different views.