Wharfedale's branches - narrow, steep-sided Langstrothdale with its rock-strewn hills and scattered hamlets, and glacial, secluded Littondale - are less known, and a lot less visited. If you're coming for a few days then Grassington, clustered round its cobbled market place, is a good spot to stay.
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From here you can head upriver to Kettlewell, the estate village of Buckden, or Kilnsey Crag, the dramatic limestone escarpment favoured by rock climbers. Downstream there's chocolate-box pretty Burnsall, sited on a crossing of the Wharfe and, just inside the park boundary, the village of Bolton Abbey. Its serene setting on the banks of the Wharfe, and its gentle woodland walks on the opposite hillside, make the abbey a favourite for picnickers and families. For more challenging walking you can follow part of the long-distance Dales Way footpath, which passes through Wharfedale on its way to Windermere.
From Grassington you can easily reach Upper Airedale, an undulating landscape of pasture, moorland and rocky outcrops, dotted with attractive, well-heeled villages - among which is Rylstone, whose good ladies so famously stripped off for That Calendar. Airedale runs seamlessly into Malhamdale, whose remarkable limestone scenery you'll remember from geography lessons at school. Formed through the action of ice and water some 10, years ago, the dale now attracts geologists, artists and climbers alike, who mostly come to study, paint or scale Malham Cove, a curved amphitheatre of silvery rock some ft high.
It's just as popular among walkers who can meander up to the strangely eroded limestone pavement on top, then continue to Gordale Scar and Malham Tarn nature reserve.
- In a quiet lane in the historic village of Kirkby Malham.
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If you want to spend some time in this area then Malham itself is the obvious base. Though popular with sightseers, it is peaceful off-season. You dine in sumptuous country-house surroundings at the Michelin-starred Burlington Restaurant, or if you're feeling more informal, in the cheerful Mediterranean setting of the Devonshire Brasserie and Bar. Just off Grassington's main square there's the 17th-century Ashfield House ; www.
The Red Lion ; www. Many rooms have views to the river and fells beyond. In Malhamdale, Beck Hall in Malham ; www. The Buck Inn ; www. Wensleydale is synonymous with cheese, which has been made in this valley since the monks at Jervaulx Abbey milked the ewes that grazed Wensleydale's green fields. This is the most pastoral of Yorkshire's dales; 25 miles of fertile, rolling country dotted with medieval castles, ancient bridges and abbeys, where the rural way of life has changed little in recent centuries.
It is also the only major dale not named after its river, though the Ure gave its name to the Cistercian abbey of Jervaulx. Overlooked by many tourists in favour of the great Yorkshire abbeys of Fountains and Rievaulx, these delightful overgrown ruins near the banks of the Ure will appeal to any romantic soul. You pay at an old-fashioned honesty box and wander around crumbling masonry sprouting lichen and wild flowers ; www.
Farther upstream are the two great Wensleydale castles of Middleham and Bolton, both open to the public. Middleham is the more ruinous of the two ; www. It's an attractive place to base yourself for exploring lower Wensleydale, particularly if you don't mind being woken early by the clatter of hooves from the racehorses that are bred and trained here, or competing for elbow room with the local stable lads in Middleham's pubs. From Middleham you can also visit Bolton Castle and try to work out which films were shot here ; www.
Otherwise head up secluded Coverdale where you can take your children to the Forbidden Corner, a labyrinth of tunnels and follies set in walled gardens ; www. You'll find wilder country around Hawes, towards the head of the dale. Once an important market and rope-making town, it's now home to the Wensleydale Creamery ; www. It's also popular with less energetic tourists, who enjoy ambling around the craft and outdoors clothing shops on the town's main street and in its narrow alleyways. And if you want to find out more about how the Dales folk have shaped the terrain, the Dales Countryside Museum, in the former train station, tells the history of the region over the last 10, years ; www.
For a great view of Pen-y-Ghent and the Dales' highest hills drive up to Buttertubs pass, on the road that climbs out of Wensleydale towards Swaledale.
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A diversion before the pass will take you to the Norse-named Hawdraw Force, tucked away in a wooded gorge outside the tiny village of the same name. At over feet, it's Britain's highest waterfall, and best seen after rain not uncommon in these parts.
Where to stay Jasmine House ; www. Formerly a grange of Jervaulx Abbey, Braithwaite Hall in Coverdale is a working hill farm, and National Trust property ; www. A farmhouse breakfast is served in the dining room. Farther up Coverdale you'll find the Forester's Arms ; www. They serve award-winning ales from their microbrewery, plus meals both lunchtimes and evenings. Midway up Wensleydale at Askrigg is Helm ; www. A set dinner is offered at weekends.
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Its restaurant serves traditional Yorkshire cooking. The farther north and west you go in the Dales, the wilder the scenery becomes. Being a neat and tidy place it doesn't straggle, so no sooner were we out of it than we found ourselves in dense beech woods carpeted with celandine. We mooched happily around some romantically overgrown quarries before returning at last through fields to long-slumbering Pickering Castle.
The town it once defended is a hub for buses that fan temptingly out all over the moors, but we rather fancied a steam train ride.
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Leaving the station we found ourselves, rather bewilderingly, in Heartbeat's Aidensfield. Our reason for alighting here, however, had less to do with boy magicians and cheery Ford Anglia-driving bobbies, than with the Rail Trail, a bucolic three-mile wander along a disused railway line to Grosmont, where we took the train through yet more pastoral scenes to the elegant seaside resort of Whitby. The next day, a bus from Pickering to Malton connected smoothly with another that took us to Castle Howard, as fine a country pile as you can imagine.
The formal gardens are surrounded by an impressive swirl of countryside displaying barely a sign of civilisation. Except for some public transport, of course: Yorkshire Coastliner , coastliner. North Yorkshire Moors Railway , nymr. Whitby Town Tour , coastalandcountry. Castle Howard , castlehoward. The White Swan , white-swan. The is one of the few truly romantic railway journeys in the UK, and also an alternative to day-time travel or flying to Inverness. You board between 8.
Then you get your cabin and sleep all the way to Aviemore. You can also board at Crewe and Preston. Breakfast is brought to you in bed. Less than five minutes from the station is the Macdonald Aviemore Highland Resort , macdonaldhotels. Family packages include wildlife spotting and a "safari" on foot.
All you have to do is get yourself and the kids onto a train to Suffolk. Go Camping does the rest: You're reunited with your belongings each night at a campsite where your tent already erected awaits you. You spend the next week ambling along the mile cycle path which follows the coast with the odd foray inland to picturesque villages. They could hardly make it easier - short of riding the bike for you. Everyone has heard of the South Downs but the northern chalk ridge between Farnham in Surrey and Dover is often overlooked, perhaps because it runs through the commuter belt.
It's great for walking - not too hilly, not too boggy - as well as cycling and horseriding. There is a good range of places to stay along the trail in Surrey, ranging from the basic, eco-friendly Puttenham Camping Barn puttenhamcampingbarn.
Check out Denbie's Vineyard denbiesvineyard. Only a handful of people complete the mile slog from Edale in Derbyshire to Kirk Yetholm in Scotland. But the less celebrated beauty of Britain's most famous national trail nationaltrail. There are good trains between Manchester and Edale and Hebden Bridge, both great entry points for an easy weekend walk. Further north, catch the train from York, Skipton or Leeds to Gargrave, and catch a bus or walk seven miles to join the Way at Malham.
Defra recognises Devon as the greenest county in the UK - at least from the food producing angle - with certified organic firms the next highest is Somerset with The South Hams Food Trail is the place to taste some of this, with farms including Riverford riverford. If you overdo it on the cider, fruity local wines or liqueurs, you can use the Totnes-Salcombe-Kingsbridge-Dartmouth bus service.
For details on how to reach these places by public transport call Traveline on , travelline. Most tourists get off the West Coast main line at Oxenholme and take the shuttle to Windermere - hence the crowds and un-Wordsworhtian atmosphere of Ambleside and most of the southern Lake resorts. A stop away on the West Coast main line is Penrith. From here catch the X4 or X5 bus to Keswick and you are in the thick of things.