How To Spend A Week In The Peak District

No Finer County…according to Jane Austen, and frankly, to me. Have you ever been to the Peak District? Well it’s an absolute stunner. I genuinely can’t think if I’ve seen more beautiful countryside. I’ve been wanting to go to the Peak District pretty much since seeing the 2005 Pride and Prejudice even though I had no real context for it. Well, Mr. Actually and I just spent a week exploring Derbyshire and I’m hear to tell you what we got up to while we were there. We originally planned to go last year, but oh hey, there’s a pandemic so we postponed. Expectations were a little bit high but I’m so glad we got to explore!

Stay in Bakewell

Bakewell was our home during our 8 day trip to the Peak District and it was lovely! Not only is it the home of the Bakewell tart, but it’s the starting point for a lot of walks and is near to many sites in the Peaks. We stayed at 1820 Cottage which was a cozy little treat, though parking was a little bit tricky at times.

There were some amazing pubs for cozy lunches and dinners, and of course we tried some proper Bakewell tarts from The Old Original Bakewell Pudding Shop. What a name! Given the short December days, we had no trouble having warm evenings and filling our days! If you’re exploring the Peak District, Bakewell is a great hub and it’s very adorable to boot!

Country Walks

Now, who doesn’t want to channel their inner Elizabeth Bennet and go traipsing through nature? Well the Peak District is definitely the place for it! Most of the walks we went on, I found via Let’s Go Peak District with pdf directions that we could save to our phones.

It made adventuring so much easier and we saw some truly beautiful scenery, including the Monsal Trail, Stanage Edge, the area around Chatsworth and lots more. I made sure to pack my base layers to keep warm and some sturdy walking boots. Sure, some of it was an exertion but the views were so amazing that I was determined to see as much as I could! We didn’t have the best weather (there was a fair bit of rain) but we did manage to squeeze in three decent country walks!

Chatsworth House

Remember when I said I’d been wanting to visit the Peak District since 2005? Well the same goes for Chatsworth House which doubled as Pemberley in that same adaptation. Full disclaimer – the day we visited, the weather was terrible… all sideways rain and blustery wind, and it totally ruined my Chatsworth vibes. We did walk through the house which was decorated to the nines for Christmas. It was truly stunning and one of the coolest stately homes I’d ever been in. Because of the weather though, we missed out on the gardens and ended up leaving after a little over an hour.

Considering how expensive tickets were and how long I had wanted to visit, I was pretty disappointed. I even had a little cry at one point. The good news was that we went on a country walk that went by Chatsworth so we were able to see some of the outside (still no gardens though). That walk took us through more of the Estate as well, including some sweet little villages and we even saw some deer and lots of sheep. If you do visit Chatsworth, I’d definitely make a day of it and explore the surrounding area as well. The views alone were top notch and almost made up for the ticket price…

Explore The Historic Villages

Bakewell was a lovely place to stay but there are some other little corners of the Peak District you’ll want to visit as well. We drove over to Castleton (which takes you down the very impressive Winnat’s Pass) one morning, with a river running through it and a castle on a hillside above it. There’s a few caverns you can explore around that area as well. Another sweet little village we visited was Eyam, which is known for being a sight of the bubonic plague. Weird flex, right? Well when the first cases happened in the village (from a tailor who handed an infected piece of fabric from London), the whole community decided to quarantine itself to prevent the spread. There are plaques outside the cottages where this happened as well as other historical information all over the village. Edensor, Ashford-in-the-Water, and Hathersage were some of the other places we visited though that’s by no means an exhaustive list!

Cozy Pub Lunches

This one might be a little bit winter specific, but one thing we decided early on was that we were going to go for low key cozy meals. Normally when we travel, we try to go to at least one nice restaurant. Given the country walks and the cold, rainy weather, we decided pub lunches were the way to go. We ate at a number of places in Bakewell, including The Manners and The Castle Inn, as well as another pub in Hathersage called The Scotsman Pack. There’s no short supply of country pubs with great rustic food in the Peak District either. There are plenty of nice restaurants as well, but there was something about opting for pub lunches that was the cherry on top of our trip!

There you have it… how to spend a week in the Peak District! There was so much to see I don’t even really feel like we scratched the surface. I’d also love to go back during a different season; the views we saw were amazing but I can only imagine how they’d look in full bloom or with the changing autumnal colors. Exploring the UK is something I love, and I’m pretty pleased to have been able to tick this one off my list!