Seaside Special - Shifting sands: Cumbria
![Image](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTcarRoZvJhnSkx7swEr9MpTrkS4xsOBEvkYKn24O4rOwSd6y0vQ1UjTHtJOj9VH6uO4uABN_olin7siup1aV6C8x1ZPooAHVMzi_ghx09e_ASbYiDs9KwSQEAOxBEQ0idivzWTv2u8av2VCDWBCemSp1nG5wysqvHfnMWxkhkSBFM80NC6RsQiEdbig/w640-h426/Cumbria%201.jpg)
Is there anywhere finer in England than the Lake District? As a Yorkshire lad, it takes a lot for me to nod such glowing approval towards the west. But without sounding like a tourist office publication, Cumbria pretty much has it all. The region is England’s only genuinely mountainous area. It looked positively Alpine-esque on my first visit here as a callow youth, gazing up at the jags and serrations of Sca Fell Pike, Helvellyn, Great Gable and the like. I soon discovered the equally beautiful, if less dramatic, fells around Ambleside, Coniston and Grasmere; stunning passes into Buttermere and Eskdale; and sparse, squat villages like Elterwater, Boot and Glenridding. And the lakes themselves, of course. Swimming in Derwentwater on a summer evening outside the youth hostel. Stone-skimming on Wastwater under the vast bleakness of Whin Rigg. Throwing up on the shores of Crummock water after eating a rotten chicken breast. It was some while before I fully appreciated the Cumbrian c