England's longest lake, a busy ribbon of water threaded with steamers and wooded islands between Ambleside and Newby Bridge
If you only ever visit one lake, it will probably be this one, and Windermere is the biggest and busiest of them all. It is England’s longest lake, running for over ten miles between Ambleside at the top and Newby Bridge at the bottom, narrow enough in places to feel like a wide river and dotted with wooded islands. The largest of those, Belle Isle, sits in the middle opposite Bowness, with a round Georgian house among its trees.
The lake has been a holiday spot since the Victorian railway arrived, and the whole eastern side around Bowness-on-Windermere can be a proper jostle in summer, with ice cream, boat hire and day trippers. The easiest way to enjoy the water is to get out on it. Passenger launches run up and down the lake all year, calling at Bowness, Ambleside and Lakeside, and you can hop on and off. There are quieter corners too: the western shore, reached by the little car ferry, is far less developed, with woodland walks up onto Claife Heights for the view back over the whole lake.
If it rains, and it will, there is plenty under cover nearby, from the Windermere Jetty Museum with its old wooden boats to the World of Beatrix Potter in Bowness. Note that the town called Windermere sits a little back from the water, a mile or so uphill from the lake and Bowness.
