Ten Lakes Full-Day Lake District Tour from Windermere

Windermere and the Lake District National Park

The Lake District is England's largest national park and has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2017, praised for the way farming, villages and wild mountains blend together. Windermere, the lake that gives the town its name, is the largest natural lake in England, about 10.5 miles long, and the village of Windermere grew up around the railway station that opened in 1847.

Starting a Lake District day tour here means you leave the busiest southern area early and spend the day in the quieter central and northern valleys. Within half an hour of departure the road climbs past small lakes and green fells to your first photo stop, where the guide explains how glaciers carved these valleys during the last Ice Age.

Keswick and Derwentwater

Keswick is the lively market town of the northern Lake District, set between the broad bulk of Skiddaw, one of England's highest mountains, and the shores of Derwentwater, a lake dotted with wooded islands. Its Market Square is framed by stone buildings and the white Moot Hall of 1813, and a street market fills it on Saturdays.

The tour gives you a full hour here for lunch: choose a café, a bakery or a restaurant, or buy a picnic and walk ten minutes to the lake shore at the boat landings. If you have ever looked for a Keswick day trip from Windermere, this stop shows you why the town is a favourite base for walkers, with outdoor shops and views of the fells at the end of every street.

Castlerigg Stone Circle

Castlerigg Stone Circle stands on a low plateau just outside Keswick and is thought to have been raised around 3000 BC, making it one of the earliest stone circles in Britain. It has about 38 standing stones in a slightly flattened ring, with a rectangle of smaller stones inside, and nobody knows for certain whether it was used for gatherings, trade or ceremonies.

What makes Castlerigg unforgettable is its setting: from the centre of the circle you see a full ring of mountains, including Helvellyn, Blencathra and Skiddaw. The site is open and free to visit, and the tour stops here for about 20 minutes, enough to walk around the stones, take photographs and feel the quiet of a place used by people for more than five thousand years.

Buttermere and Honister Pass

Buttermere is one of the most loved valleys in the Lake District: a small lake about a mile and a half long, framed by the steep High Stile ridge and the craggy end of Fleetwith Pike, with its neighbour Crummock Water just beyond. Rows of pines line the shore, and on calm days the mountains reflect perfectly in the water. The tour stops here for about half an hour for photographs and a short stroll.

The road then climbs Honister Pass, which rises to about 356 metres with gradients as steep as one in four, one of the most dramatic drives in England. At the top, among old slate workings and rough fells, you have a short break before the minibus winds down into the valleys again. Your driver-guide handles the hairpins, so you can simply enjoy the views.

Grasmere village

Grasmere is a pretty village of grey slate cottages beside a small lake of the same name, surrounded by green fells and old woodland. The church of St Oswald, with its squat stone tower, stands by the little River Rothay, and the lanes around it are full of galleries, tea rooms and craft shops.

Grasmere is also famous for its gingerbread, a spicy, chewy treat that has been baked in the village since the nineteenth century, and the tour gives you about 30 minutes of free time to try it and wander. If you are asking whether Grasmere is worth visiting, a short walk from the church to the lake shore answers the question: it is one of the most peaceful corners of the Lakes.

Rydal Water and the return to Windermere

Just south of Grasmere lies Rydal Water, one of the smallest lakes in the national park, barely a kilometre long, with reed beds, tiny wooded islands and rocky fellsides rising above it. The tour stops for about 15 minutes so you can take photographs from the shore, especially beautiful in the soft light of late afternoon.

From Rydal the road follows the valley past Ambleside and the northern end of Windermere back to the Tourist Information Centre, where the tour ends after about eight hours. The best time for a Lake District tour is from late spring to early autumn for long days and green valleys, but autumn colours and snow-capped fells in winter are just as striking.