A soul-renewing experience is a walking tour of the Lake District in England. The trails lead travelers along remote valleys and paths, up walkable mountain peaks and past sparkling lakes where few visitors go. The people are genuine, friendly and courteous. The hotels are quiet and charming.
In late May and early June, my sister and I hiked some 75 miles in the Lake District, starting in Ambleside and ending in Keswick. Along the way, we saw three of the biggest lakes in England, comprising Lake Windermere, Ullswater Lake and Derwentwater Lake.
Our hike started with a boat ride on the Steamer, the name given to the diesel-powered ferry, that allowed us to admire Lake Windermere and the mountains. These lakes are finger lakes, carved by retreating glaciers in millennia past.
Our hike went through some remote areas. I saw an actual shepherd – he wasn’t wearing a sheepskin vest, but it was still a thrill – with his dogs amid the bleating sheep near the Grisedale valley, surrounded by hills and steep mountains. I even saw a shepherd’s hut where men working the mountains can go during storms. I traversed several glacial valleys.
Some of the trails are rough and rocky. We huffed up the equivalent of three mountains, not an easy task for people in their early 60s, but there were only two peaks that were a bit steep. We just walked them slowly with frequent stops.
There’s some great history, ancient and modern, in the Lake District, including Dove Cottage, the home of poet William Wordsworth. In the early 1980s, when I was a English literature student at the University of Illinois, I vowed to visit the Lake District because I admired the Romantic writers, including Samuel Coleridge, another poet who lived in the region. Though it took me 43 years, I finally visited the Lake District. To think that Dove Cottage was where Wordsworth penned “Intimations of Immortality,” “The Prelude” and “The World is Too Much with Us.” In addition, we saw the Castlerigg Stone Circle, a megalithic monument formed of stones in 3,200 BC, making it older than the Egyptian pyramids.
Keswick, a mining and market town in the northern part of the Lake District, will always stay with me. The Bank Tavern is a wonderful pub. Pub grub in England is hearty, fresh and tasty.
Prior to our hike, we found at least four companies that organize walking tours of the Lake District, either as part of groups or for individuals: Contours Holidays, Brigantes Walking Holidays, Northwestwalks England and Orbis. If you go on a walking tour, make sure to read the prospectus. The company we selected might have misstated our daily hikes as kilometers, rather than miles, as part of the prospectus we had been sent, a significant mistake. For instance, our first day of hiking was listed as 15.4 kilometers, but my sister's Fitbit said it was 15.4 miles. We didn't let this error ruin our trip. Walking tour companies do three things: They select trails, make reservations at B&Bs for the entire trip, including breakfast, and provide baggage transfer from hotel to hotel.
Though I don't usually get attached to hotels, this trip had an exception: The Ullswater Inn is the second-best hotel I’ve ever stayed in over 24 trips abroad.
I’ve taken five long-distance hikes in my life, two in Ireland, one in Canada, one in the U.S. and now England. A walking tour will make you fall in love with the world again.