Places to explore in Greater ManchesterEngland · North West England

Britain's first national park: gritstone edges in the Dark Peak, limestone dales in the White.

1,438 km²

The world's first swing aqueduct — a 235-foot iron trough that pivots aside, water and all, to let ships pass on the Manchester Ship Canal.

Tall Victorian monument to Sir Robert Peel crowning Holcombe Hill above Ramsbottom, with wide Pennine views.

The Leeds & Liverpool waterfront Orwell made shorthand for hard times, its old warehouses now the heart of a canalside quarter.

Handsome reservoir ringed by gritstone edges and RSPB moorland where Saddleworth meets the Peak District.

An early-Georgian mansion with one of Britain's largest winter gardens and a deer park.

The Pennines for horse and bike — old packhorse trails and drovers' roads.

330 km · spans 6 counties

The first and toughest of them all — 268 miles along England's rocky spine from the Peak to the Cheviots.

431 km · spans 8 counties

Flight of sixteen canal locks and a towering stone aqueduct where the Peak Forest Canal climbs out of the Goyt valley.

Canal-side Uppermill museum tracing the woollen trade and Roman past of the Saddleworth villages.

The longest single canal in Britain, crossing the Pennines by Bingley's Five Rise Locks and the moors above Burnley.

204 km · spans 5 counties

Handsome Saddleworth conservation village of weavers' cottages around a sloping cobbled square.

Greater Manchester