My three long weeks in London and England's North was about to close. I had covered a lot, experienced much and my education was well rewarded. My choice for the grand finale was easy. It was a place, like many dreamers before me had dreamed and visited; and now, a few miles from Carlisle, Cumbria, my dream was fulfilled. The Lake District is England's largest National Park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Covering 912 square miles, it is home to more than 200 spectacular mountains and fells ('hills), along with lakes, rivers and tarns, surrounded by thriving villages and historic monuments. It is landscape that has inspired great works of art.

The sound of the tracks was calming as my railway car glided effortlessly through Northern England's breathtaking countryside. Watching the miles pass from a train window allows a perspective that is not offered by plane travel. And now, heading to Carlisle in Cumbria, nothing else seemed to matter besides the little farms and villages and sweeping green fields in England's north. Our life-long London friend, Trish, sat beside us, occasionally offering a soft-spoken narrative of its history, a history where the green fields were once soaked in the color of red from the Celts, the Romans, the Vikings, the Angles and Saxons, the Normans, the Jacobites and the Border Reivers