Windermere is well placed as a base for exploring the central Lake District. Hawkshead and Beatrix Potter's house at Hill Top are an easy half-day west of the lake; Grasmere, with Wordsworth's Dove Cottage, is a short bus ride north up the A591. Coniston, with its smaller lake and the Ruskin Museum, is twenty minutes by car or a longer trip by bus over the hill from Ambleside.
For more strenuous hill walking, Helvellyn and the Striding Edge ridge are within reach for a long day, as is Scafell Pike — England's highest mountain — though both work better from Patterdale or Wasdale respectively. Keswick, at the northern end of the National Park, is the alternative base for that part of the Lakes and is an hour by bus or car.
