Cumbria and the Lakes Travel Video Guide

Cumbria and the Lakes Travel Itinerary

• Maps and flag of England
• Cumbria and the Lakes travel photos
• Cumbria and the Lakes travel forum
• Flights to Cumbria and the Lakes
• Hotels in Cumbria and the Lakes
• Hostels in Cumbria and the Lakes
• Buy the guide book!

The Lake District is England's most hyped scenic area, and for good reasons. Within an area a mere thirty miles across, sixteen major lakes are squeezed between the steeply pitched faces of England's highest mountains, an almost alpine landscape that's augmented by waterfalls and picturesque stone-built villages packed into the valleys. Most of what people refer to as the Lake District - or simply the Lakes - lies within the Lake District National Park , England's largest national park, established in 1951. This, in turn, falls entirely within the northwestern county of Cumbria , formed in 1974 from the historic counties of Cumberland and Westmorland, and the northern part of Lancashire. Consequently Cumbria contains more than just its lakes, stretching south and west to the coast , and north to its county town of Carlisle , a place that bears traces of a pedigree that stretches back beyond the construction of Hadrian's Wall. To the east, Penrith and the Eden Valley separate the lakes from the near wilderness of the northern Pennines.

Everywhere in the Lakes and Cumbria is connected by local bus , with Stagecoach in Cumbria the biggest operator. Their Explorer Tickets (one-day GBP6.50; four-day GBP15) are valid on the entire network and can be bought on the bus, while other bus-and-boat combination tickets offer a variety of good deals. All routes are all spelled out in detail in the free Lakeland Explorer timetable , available on board buses or from local tourist offices.

Even more comprehensive is the Getting Around Cumbria and the Lake District timetable book produced twice a year by Cumbria County Council and available from tourist offices throughout the region. Or call Traveline (daily 7am-8pm; tel 0870/608 2608, ), which can advise about all the region's bus, coach, rail and ferry services.

For more information about all aspects of the National Park, visit ; while the official site of the Cumbria Tourist Board is .

Your Tips For Cumbria and the Lakes

• East Anglia England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  Strictly speaking, East Anglia is made up of just three counties - Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire - which were settled by Angles from Holstein in the fifth century, though in more recent times it's come to be loosely applied to parts of Essex too. - England
  

• Surrey Kent and Sussex England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  The southeast corner of England was traditionally where London went on holiday. - England
  

• Northeast England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  For England's northeastern region - in particular the counties of Northumberland and Durham - the centuries between the Roman invasion and the 1603 union of the English and Scottish crowns were a period of almost incessant turbulence. - England
  

• Cumbria and the Lakes England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  The Lake District is England's most hyped scenic area, and for good reasons. - England
  

• Cotswolds and Somerset England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  The rolling green swards of Gloucestershire and Somerset , a wedge of land linking the Midlands with the West Country, encapsulate a vision of rural England which has very largely survived the inroads of modern urban culture. - England
  

• Northwest England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  Within the northwest of England lie some of the ugliest and some of the most beautiful parts of the country. - England
  

• Devon and Cornwall England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  At the western extremity of England, the counties of Devon and Cornwall encompass everything from genteel, cosy villages to vast Atlantic-facing strands of golden sand and wild expanses of granite moorland. - England
  

• Oxford and around England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  Arching around the peripheries of London, beyond the orbital M25, the "Home Counties" of England form London's commuter-belt. - England
  

• Yorkshire England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  Few visitors pass through Yorkshire , England's largest county, without spending time in history-soaked York , for centuries England's second city. - England
  

• West Midlands and the Peak District England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  The factories of the West Midlands were the powerhouses of the Industrial Revolution and Birmingham , Britain's second city, was once the world's greatest industrial metropolis. - England
  

• East Midlands England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  Many tourists bypass the four major counties of the East Midlands - Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire - on their way to more obvious destinations, and although there's much to savour it's true they miss little of overriding interest. - England
  

• Hampshire Dorset and Wiltshire England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  The distant past is perhaps more tangible in Hampshire, Dorset and Wiltshire than in any other part of England. - England
  

• London England Travel Videos
  England Travel Itinerary
  With a population of just under eight million, London is Europe's largest city, spreading across an area of more than 620 square miles from its core on the River Thames. - England