A part of the daily academic
diet of every scholar at
Oxford and Cambridge was
to walk in the woods and
commune with nature.
Now when people made a pilgrimage to
cultural big shots, they weren't
into some fancy salon in Paris, they were
going up to the Cumbrian Lakes District
in the north of England and walking in
the woods with the great poet Wordsworth.
Turner is a great romantic landscape
artist, and he would paint seascapes, and
he would paint landscapes, that really
pull you in
to the wonder of nature. When you go to
the Lake District in northern England,
that's where you find the power of
nature in such a beautiful way. You'll
find more youth hostels per square mile
in the Cumbrian Lakes District than
anywhere else in Europe, and they
need every one of them, because the
English people love to go up there and
commune with nature.
This is the backyard of Wordsworth, the
great poem — poet, and you can see his home
there, you can read his poetry there, and
you can be inspired by the Romantic
movement, and how that involved nature.
