Enjoy a good pre-breakfast workout with a steep 3.5km trek to this secluded cafe in Banff national park, built in 1901 as a shelter for hikers. Starting behind the historic Fairmont Lake Louise hotel, the path winds through forest that opens up with spectacular vistas of snow-streaked crags. For brisk walkers, the journey takes about an hour; the less fit …

Despite a mildly corporate feel, this Victorian pile in the Lakes redeems itself with historic features and our writer’s favourite luxury: TVs in the bathrooms High and handsome … the Lake District’s Villa Levens As an atheist, I am unlikely to ever need spiritual guidance in the Lake District. What I do require, however, in an area where hotel room-rates …

Vast as a sea and deep as an ocean trench, Russia’s Lake Baikal is one of the world’s great natural wonders. With a surface area bigger than Belgium, it contains nearly one quarter of all the world’s freshwater, which is more than the five American Great Lakes combined. Baikal is truly a lake of superlatives. The Earth’s deepest inland body …