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It is said that Arthur Ransome based the lake in his Swallows and Amazons books partly on Windermere a partly on Coniston Water.
It is certainly much easier to image the events of those long lost days happening here rather than on the busy, noisy, overcrowded Windermere.
The scenery is, of course, splendid, and there are interesting remains of the old copper mines, but the highlight for me was the Steam Yacht Gondola.
This splendid old lady, with her plush padded salon and gleaming brass work, is now reduced to taking trippers around the lake. She clearly finds the whole thing a bit infra-dig. Or perhaps that's just because she is owned and run by the National Trust.