Travel Guide Peak District National Park

Flaming heather hills, lunar rocky plateaus and limestone cliffs with honey expanses: the Peak District is a small corner of paradise in the heart of England. The first national park to be created, it is still the most popular today. Opened in 1951, it spends 1,438 square kilometres of protected areas in the heart of the Pennines Mountains, the backbone of the country that it shares with its northern neighbours, the Yorkshire Dales and Northumberland National Park. Its location between Manchester, Sheffield, Stoke and Derby makes it a Garden of Eden for these teeming cities. Everything here is quiet and relaxing. The only witnesses of outside activity are the planes that fly over the little sheep to reach the northern airports and the train line running from east to west. The landscapes, of all beauty, alternate between green valleys and mysterious peaks, to the delight of nature lovers, whether they are lovers of walking, cycling, climbing, speleology or paragliding. The main tourist activities are in Hope Valley, where the industrial heritage meets the magical heights of Kinder Scout and Mam Tor.Villages: there are four main villages in the valley. All are very typical of Derbyshire with their beige or grey stones and the number of their pubs which often exceeds that of the shops... Bamford, Hope and Castleton are the southernmost. It is here that most of the amenities are found, as well as the large cement factory that recalls the park's mining history. To the north, Edale is a simple village surrounded by hills from which most of the trails start. For larger cities, it will be necessary to drive to Hathersage or Chapel-en-le-Frith.