William Wordsworth, one of the United Kingdom’s most famous poets—back in the days when sonnets rhymed—is linked inextricably to England’s Lake District, two hours north of the bustling, energetic cities of Liverpool and Manchester.

Most British school children know Wordsworth’s famous lines, “I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o’er vales and hills; When all at once I saw a crowd, a host of dancing daffodils.” When some read his verses, they are catapulted back to an age of innocence, an idolized idea of England that probably never was. Since the mid-20th century, to help preserve such beauty, the British government has set up protected national parks. One of the first in England was the Lake District National Park, formed in 1951, along with the Peak District (in Derbyshire) and Dartmoor (in Devon). Through poetry, literature, famous residents and the good reports of a century of vacationers, this area of England has become loved.

Wordsworth wrote the first guidebook to the Lake District area, his simply titled Guide to the Lakes, published in 1810 and still in print (www.franceslincoln.com). Still recognizing the landscape from his descriptions would be the modern-day traveler—although there are many, many more tourists today, especially during the annual school summer vacation (roughly from the last two weeks of July to the second week of September), when families descend here in huge numbers.

A great starting point for a Lake District tour is Ravenglass, the only coastal settlement within the park’s boundaries. (The coastline is pretty hereabouts, but alongside the seashore to the north is the enormous Sellafield nuclear-power plant, and on the whole, tourists tend to shy away from enormous nuclear-power plants; to the southeast is the wild expanse of Morecambe Bay and its treacherous mud flats.) No more than 500 people live in Ravenglass, but it does contain the Pennington Hotel (011-44-1229-717222; www.thepennington.co.uk), managed and owned by the Frost-Pennington family, which lives in Muncaster Castle just up the road (the castle contains a zoo of owls). Completely gutted and renovated in early 2007, the tidy Pennington Hotel has 19 rooms, an innovative restaurant, a lounge bar and several interesting nooks and crannies. Outside is the Ravenglass & Eskdale Railway (011-44-1229-717171; www.ravenglass-railway.co.uk), a steam train that travels for eight miles through flowery woods and across meandering streams. Also known as The Ratty, the line ends at a quiet village called Boot, a mile from which is England’s highest pass, Hardknott Pass, with a Roman fort built around the same time as Hadrian’s Wall, farther to the north. Today the fort stands unprotected from stiff breezes, but when it was built in the 2nd century, trees surrounded this rocky spur. Two millennia of sheep grazing consumed most of the vegetation.

On the other side of a slow 1-in-3-gradiant drive across the pass is the reason the park is called the Lake District: Windermere, Buttermere, Thirlmere, Grasmere, Crummock, Ullswater, Hayeswater, Loweswater, Wast Water, Esthwaite Water, Coniston Water, Rydal Water and Tarn Hows, among them, delightful names for delightful bodies of water that radiate from the park’s hilly center like a gigantic asterisk.

Windermere, perhaps, is the most famous lake, with Grasmere a close second. The roads between the towns of Windermere and Ambleside, also on Lake Windermere, are the busiest in the area. Traffic in summer often is unbearable. Quiet corners can be found, and some areas of the park nearly always are deserted, although no less spectacular than the popular locations. Often voted as the favorite lake is Rydal Water, tucked just behind Windermere.

Truth be told, here, everything is just tucked behind something else, the whole park covering no more than 885 square miles, not so much bigger than London. Its highest peak (the word mountain rarely is used throughout the British Isles in reference to high hills) is Scafell (fell being the local dialect for a treeless mountainside) at 3,210 feet above sea level. It also has the distinction of being the highest spot in England. Do not let these “small” numbers fool you. The roads often are narrow and steep, and mist and fog can descend quickly and without warning. The mountain-rescue huts dotted around are here for a time-tested reason. The most difficult peak to scale here, and one with a suitably omen-laden name, is Helvellyn.

Most of the time, most of the year, however, the Lake District conforms to the notion of what is most celebrated about the English countryside: stone walls, fluffy sheep, verdant hillsides, sparkles of blue water and quaint villages with thatched roofs and rough-hewn, white stone walls.

One cottage to visit is Hill Top (011/44-1539-436269; www.nationaltrust.org.uk/main/w-vh/w-visits/w-findaplace/w-hilltop), the home of another of Lakeland’s celebrated writers, Beatrix Potter. It is in a small village called Near Sawrey, on the western side of Windermere. This 17th-century cottage was where the children’s-book author—recently portrayed by Renée Zellweger in the 2006 movie Miss Potter—wrote some of her most-loved stories. When Potter died in 1943, she gave her cottages and lands to the National Trust, which administers many spots of historical importance and scenic beauty throughout the UK. Close to Hill Top is the second of her houses, Castle Farm. Both remain today as they were when she lived there. A wonderful walk from Hill Top is on a public footpath (Britain has an extensive network of footpaths that often cross private land, the owners of which must allow access; in turn, walkers are expected to keep to the paths and always, always, close gates after themselves) through the village, with Cuckoo Brow Wood on the right, and up to Moss Eccles Tarn, also owned by the National Trust.

Wordsworth lived at the equally famous Dove Cottage (011/44-1539-435544; www.wordsworth.org.uk), yards from the lake of Grasmere. As is Hill Top, Dove Cottage today is a museum open to the public. A memorable walk to reach Dove Cottage is to walk along the south bank of Rydal Water, ascend along the side of Loughrigg Tarn, cross Grasmere stream and walk back along the stream on a public footpath, before crossing White Moss Common and entering the village of Town End, wherein is Wordsworth’s home.

Many Lake District walks are contained in another very-loved writer’s very-loved book. Alfred Wainwright’s (www.wainwright.org.uk) first published his seven-volume Pictorial Guides to the Lakeland Fells  (also available at www.franceslincoln.com) in 1955. Still in print, it contains all of AW’s (as he was known by all) hand-drawn sketches and walking maps. It is a delight to read, regardless of any desire to follow any of his 214 routes, collectively known as the Wainwrights. Many people have walked them all.

If this article has used the words “celebrated,” “well-loved,” “beloved,” etc., too often it is because most things connected with this landscape have over the last 200 years seeped their way into the collective soul of the English, in a way that no other region has. Yes, there are Hardy Country, after novelist Thomas Hardy, in Dorset and Hampshire; Bronte Country, after novelists the Bronte sisters, in Yorkshire; and, increasingly, Harry Potter Country in Northumberland, but none of these beautiful spots comes close to the literary legacy of the Lake District. Other Lake District writers include the gentle travel pieces of Hunter Davies and the Swallows and Amazons children’s-books series (enjoyed nonetheless by many adults) of Arthur Ransome.

A note on place names: The Lake District is part of the county of Cumbria, which comprises lands that were in the existing countries of Lancashire and Yorkshire, as well as two former counties, Westmoreland and Cumberland, which were totally incorporated. Locals still use these two old names. Cumberland, for example, is a type of sausage, while one town, Appleby-in-Westmoreland, apparently incensed by suddenly being part of a county they had never heard of, was granted special dispensation to add the words –in-Westmoreland, thus obtaining the name the town is called today.