Cumbria is England's answer to Switzerland or the lakes of northern Italy. The Lake District is an area of outstanding beauty, where placid lakes nestle in deep, steep-sided valleys, reflecting the rugged mountains that tower over them. Elsewhere the mountains take the form of "fells", great waves of land that roll across the landscape like the swell of a calm sea.
Carlisle, Cumbria's only city, is a blot of urban blight on the flood-plain of the Eden River and only its grim red sandstone castle bears witness to its bloody role in the days when Scotland and England were at perpetual war with one another and reivers (cattle theives and raiders) rendered the Debatable Lands between the two kingdoms a perilous place.
Our first film from Cumbria, however, takes us to a wild and desolate marsh and then we explore more wilderness at the top of Hardknott Pass.