My motorboat is purring through the water, its vintage lines and sleek good looks turning heads. The water is glassily green, the surrounding hills majestic, grand houses peep out of the shoreline’s foliage… oh, and someone has just handed me a glass of champagne.
Given a slight increase in temperature, and with slightly sexier accents around me – and just a teensy stretch of the imagination – I could be on Lake Como in Italy. As it happens, I’m on Windermere.
My boat, the MV Albatros, a 50ft-long varnished teak beauty, built in 1928, is moored at the lake’s Langdale Chase hotel for use by guests. It would, however, look equally at home in the Italian lakes – and it certainly brings a touch of la dolce vita to Windermere, without the expense of going to L’Italia.
Could it be argued that the English Lake District is as alluring as the Italian lake district? Both have mountainous backdrops (Cumbria’s fells; the Alpine foothills), both boast their respective country’s largest lake (Windermere; Garda), both have wooed poets and writers (Wordsworth and Coleridge; Byron and Shelley), and both offer opportunities to be lazy or active. One is here on our doorstep, the other is, expensively, over there. Let’s compare…
Swap Como for… Windermere
Como is famously glamorous and surrounded by grand villas, many of them now hotels bristling with fancy restaurants. Forested slopes reach down to the shoreline; mountains rise up behind; water taxis and private boats zig-zag between its shores, trailing a wake of wealth and indolence.
But Windermere is not so shabby. From the Albatros – built for a German sea captain, after which it suffered a chequered history around Europe before being rescued and restored by the hotel – I can gaze (with champagne in hand) at forested slopes with iconic fells, including the Langdale Pikes, rising behind.
Several large hotels grace the shoreline, often with glamorous histories. The Samling, for example, (with Michelin-starred restaurant) was Wordsworth’s landlord’s Georgian home; Holbeck Ghyll was formerly the hunting lodge of the spendthrift Lord Lonsdale; while Langdale Chase, a mix of Victorian grandiosity and modern-day sleekness and with its Mawson-designed gardens, was built for a wealthy Lancashire widow. On a sunny day, its stone-balustraded terrace overlooking the lake is a scene stealer.
Windermere Steamers offer year-round lake cruises; in the summer, some with live music, too. There are lakeside strolls, including through the arboretum and yew walk of Wray Castle (mock-Gothic) where Beatrix Potter stayed as a teenager.
True, the honeypot town of Bowness lacks Bellagio’s beauty, but its souvenirs are cheaper than those around Como.
Price comparison
The Langdale Chase is Windermere’s most glamorous lakeside hotel, with Victorian oak panelling and staircase, glass-walled dining room, bedrooms with marble bathrooms, plus a terrace, watersports, private motor boat and cinema; doubles from £390.
The Grand Hotel Villa Serbelloni, in Bellagio, is a similar age to Langdale Chase, suitably grand and traditionally furnished – Murano glass chandeliers, frescoes, antiques – with swimming pools, pier and private beach; doubles from £450.
Swap Garda for… Ullswater
Lake Garda is so long, at 32 miles, that it generates its own microclimate, often sunnier than the surroundings. Ullswater, at one quarter of the length, can’t compete in scale – or climate, to be fair – but, like Garda, it offers high peaks at one end (Helvellyn and Place Fell) and gentler hills at the other. Like Garda, it’s also big on watersports: sailing, standup paddleboarding, kayaking and swimming. It has beaches, too; a bit more gritty-sandy than Garda, but beaches nevertheless.
Another Place, a luxurious family-friendly hotel on its western shore, has its own (tiny) beach plus private pier, and guests are actively encouraged to get in the water (kayaks, paddleboards, wetsuits and tuition are provided). I decline the wild swimming excursion, but enjoy a bracing dip after toasting myself in the lakeside sauna with its mesmeric views across the water to Barton Fell and Arthur’s Pike.
It is one of several smart hotels (Sharrow Bay, aside) that, like Garda, lie on the western shore. This means the eastern side, particularly at the southern end, is delightfully quiet – not something that can be said of Garda. The easiest way to reach this side is to take one of the Ullswater Steamers – small and elegant with cherry-red funnels – disembark at Howton and hike south to lose yourself in peaceful Martindale.
Price comparison
Family-friendly Another Place, on a private lakeshore, mixes Georgian country house with a contemporary bedroom wing, plus romantic shepherd’s huts, and offers a pool, spa, watersports and choice of dining; doubles from £270.
The elegant Grand Hotel Fasano, in a former hunting lodge near the Gardone Riviera, has neoclassical styling, spa, pools, saunas, watersports and plenty of family-friendly services; doubles from £306.
Swap Maggiore for… Derwentwater
One of the great beauties of sinuous Lake Maggiore, whose northern tip stretches into Switzerland, is the trio of Borromean islands with their lush gardens and Baroque palazzi. Like Garda, the lake has its own, often sunnier, microclimate, and, like Como, there are dazzling lakeside villas. Above the western shore, a cable car up Monte Mottarone (4,892ft) delivers staggering views.
It would be disingenuous to pretend Derwentwater can match Maggiore’s highlights, but it is, arguably, the Lake District’s prettiest lake – especially when viewed from one of the traditional varnished-wood launches that putter across its waters. Surrounded by forested shores, green fellsides and craggy outcrops, the lake has four islands, two (and occasionally three) of which you can land on.
The surrounding peaks aren’t as mighty but they’re distinctive: the wave-like Cat Bells and Maiden Moor, with bobble-hatted Causey Pike behind; the rocky escarpment of Walla Crag; Castle Crag at the southern end framed in the gorge known as the Jaws of Borrowdale. Take the easy climb up Cat Bells and, on a clear day, the views – including Skiddaw, Blencathra, sleepy Newlands valley, plus the lake and verdant Borrowdale – are out of all proportion to the effort to climb its modest 1,481ft.
Price comparison
Lodore Falls, opposite the southern end of Derwentwater, is a Victorian landmark hotel in Borrowdale with an indoor-outdoor spa, infinity pool plus sleek contemporary rooms and a choice of dining; doubles from £234.
On the lakefront at Stresa, opposite the Borromean islands, Grand Hotel Bristol is an imposing 19th-century building with an elegant style, lake-view restaurant, gardens, and indoor and outdoor pools; doubles from £287.
Swap Orta for… Ennerdale
With no glitzy villas or exotic gardens, buzzing seaplanes or wallet-busting shops, Lake Orta – the smallest of the main Italian lakes at just under eight miles – is often overlooked. Sitting to the west of Maggiore, it offers a retreat from the touristy excesses of the main lakes. Here you come for dreamy, green-cloaked lakeside hills, deep-blue waters, the striking Isola San Giulio, slow-paced Orta San Giulio (its main village), pretty shoreline strolls or more strenuous hiking trails.
Likewise, Ennerdale Water, a neat two miles long, is often bypassed, yet is only a 20-minute drive south of busy Cockermouth in the north-western Lakes. It doesn’t have the allure of Orta’s island, crowned with its basilica, but it certainly escapes the crowds – partly because there’s no road around the lakeshore, partly because there’s no commercial development.
Walking around the lakeshore (a total of seven miles), I meet more wildlife than people; if I’d wanted something more testing, this lake is the ideal starting point for the 2,926ft-high Pillar.
As with Orta, there’s only one centre; the village of Ennerdale Bridge (population 350), one and a half miles from the lake with church, two pubs and the community-run café and shop (the Gather). Its homemade cakes, I promise (from rigorous testing), are a match for any Italian torta della nonna.
Price comparison
The Fox & Hounds Inn, a traditional Lakeland inn offering four modest but large bedrooms, robust home cooking, a good range of local ales and a friendly welcome; doubles from £150.
In a lakeside 18th-century building in medieval Orta San Giulio, Al Dom is a quiet bed-and-breakfast with a lakeside garden and four bedrooms furnished in shabby-chic style; doubles from £168.
Swap Iseo for… Grasmere
Sitting between the star turns of Como and Garda, Lake Iseo is often bypassed – though is a favourite of Italians from nearby Brescia and Bergamo. Forested and craggy slopes dip to the water; the central island, Monte Isola, is as round as it is high; while restaurant menus tempt with lake fish and the sparkling wines of nearby Franciacorta vineyards.
Grasmere, by comparison, is tiny – but punches above its weight. Elliptical in shape and framed by fells, with a forested shoreline and scattering of beaches below grass and bracken-covered slopes, and an island plum in the centre, it’s incredibly photogenic. Nor is it spoilt by the buzz of motorboats; only swimmers and non-powered craft are allowed. True, there’s a busy road along one shore and Grasmere village is cute but tourist-soaked, but it’s a 20-minute walk from the lake, which keeps crowds at bay. And there’s good food to be had, including Michelin-starred Forest Side.
Coming down from Loughrigg Fell above its southern shore on a sunny late afternoon, I pause on Loughrigg Terrace – a path well known to poet William Wordsworth. The lake’s waters are sapphire-blue, its island, like a giant broccoli, sits serenely in the middle while a rowing boat noodles lazily around. Indeed, why hurry with surroundings such as these?
Price comparison
The Daffodil Hotel, the only Grasmere hotel with direct lake access from its gardens, has a bright and sleek contemporary style, pool and spa, and the best lake views; doubles from £192.
Family-run Hotel Rivalago, on the lakefront opposite Monte Isola, has a simple French Provençal style, outdoor pool and garden; doubles from £177.
All room prices include breakfast. Helen Pickles was a guest of Langdale Chase and Another Place.