Where to eat

If it’s the perfect pub lunch you seek, consider the following: “Ploughman’s with Colston Bassett stilton and Godsells double gloucester, house pickles, tomato, apple and pub chutney.” It’s on sale for £8.50 at the Bell (01285 760298, www.foodatthebell.co.uk), in Sapperton.

For dinner, try the Ragged Cot (01453 884643, theraggedcot.co.uk), across the road from Gatcombe Park, in Minchinhampton. It describes itself as “a proper country pub” and serves proper posh pub grub: we like steak, kidney and stout pie with smoked garlic mash and roasted carrots (£11).

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The region is studded with media-friendly manors such as Calcot Manor — “home to a fabulous spa... and a courtyard hot tub that just begs to be lazed in with a glass of champagne”, says The Telegraph — and Lords of the Manor, described by the cheese-making Groucho Club member Alex James as “quintessence of Cotswold”, where everything is “damned near perfect”.

Our Cotswold confidants are unimpressed, recommending instead the Bear of Rodborough (01453 878522, cotswold-inns-hotels.co.uk), a 300-year-old coaching inn high above Stroud, in the wilds of Rodborough Common, or the Amberley Inn (01453 872565, theamberley.co.uk), “perched high above the Nailsworth valley”. Doubles at either start at £65.

THE LAKES

If you believe the guidebooks and the glossy reviews, the Lake District, a vast national park covering 885 square miles, has just three attractions. First up is Lake Windermere, where the Daily Mail advises joining the queue for Windermere Lake Cruises, “for the authentic sound of the good old honest lake steamer, as that spectacular landscape unfurls around you”. It doesn’t mention that, just as 30% of the world’s cranes are in Dubai, a similar proportion of the world’s coaches can be found in Bowness.

Then there’s Beatrix Potter’s house, near Hawkshead — so popular with Japanese tourists that a replica has been built at Daito Bunka University, in Tokyo — and Wordsworth’s cottage, in Grasmere, described vaguely by the Fodor’s guidebook as “somewhat close to what the poet would have known”.

There are but two places to eat: the Drunken Duck, where Harper’s Bazaar raves over the “liquorice-marinated pigeon with prune and parmesan risotto”, and the even scarier L’Enclume, where The Observer breathlessly reports a menu “scattered with references to sweet cicely and bergamot, hyssop and woodruff”. As for a bed for the night, everyone knows there’s only Holbeck Ghyll, where Renée Zellweger once stayed.

We can do better than this, thanks to the historian and walking guide John Murphy, Peter Braine, who has farmed the fells for 42 years, and Ulverston-born Sally Broom, founder of the traveller’s website www.tripbod.com.

What to do

Visit the Furness peninsula: even the glossiest guides are forced to admit that the Lakeland honeypots of Ambleside, Hawkshead and Grasmere are “bustling” — meaning rammed to the gills — so ignore them and take a tour from Ulverston along the coast to Barrow-in-Furness.

Visit Piel Island, in the shadow of the eponymous castle, and have a pint in the Ship Inn with the king of Piel, who, by happy coincidence, is also the landlord. Rent bikes for £18 a day from the Mountain Centre (01229 716461, mountaincentre.co.uk), in Broughton-in-Furness, and follow the lovely Duddon valley down to the sea, where up to 70,000 waterfowl spend the winter, or feel the shivers run down your spine at Furness Abbey, deep in the Vale of Deadly Nightshade.

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