A canal and seaside walk to a great pub: the Hest Bank, near Morecambe Bay

Lancashire's great seaside resorts were built near mill towns, mining towns, soot towns. The railroads siphoned the starving sun to the seaside resorts, which grew and grew, until they looked a bit like the places where day-trippers and Wake weekenders tried to escape. p>

That's why Hest Bank, north of Morecambe, is special. It's picturesque. It's almost bucolic. It's small and quiet. And it has a namesake pub that combines the salt air and big foreshore sky with a cozy village quality. People from all over Lonsdale come here for lunches and beer garden sessions.

It's also worth a visit and this one from Lancaster to the coast is as simple as a donkey ride.

I start high up at Lancaster Castle, overlooking the medieval heart of this city. It is a prohibited building which accentuates the hilly location; the topography is one of the reasons the Romans came - they could watch the coast for enemies as they marched north. Three successive Roman forts laid the foundations of the later Norman castle. It was heightened and strengthened in the Middle Ages and was the symbolic base of power for John O'Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster - uncle of Richard II, father of Henry IV (and 13 other bastards) and grandfather of Henry V. The castle functioned as a prison and courthouse, providing dungeon and porridge for the witches of Pendle, Quaker founder George Fox, Peterloo lecturer Henry "Orator" Hunt, and the Birmingham Six. The prison did not close until 2011.