WE ARE sitting in the hush of Hipping Hall's 15th-century dining room, trying to imagine Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon wise-cracking their way through the seven-course tasting menu.

The comic duo stayed at the hotel near Kirkby Lonsdale while filming their acclaimed BBC sitcom The Trip.

It proved one of the highlights of their improvised restaurant review tour of the North of England with them tucking into a meal very similar to our own including hand-dived scallops, pork belly and roast saddle of venison.

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My boyfriend Ben and I are on our own trip, taking in two of the UK's most spectacular national parks, the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District.

The approach to nine-room Hipping Hall, a stone-fronted house, is via a long gravel driveway passing through the property's three acres.

Our room features crisp bed linen on the Vi-Spring bed and a huge bath in the natural stone bathroom.

The service is impressive, too.

My requested cup of tea comes on a silver tray with two generous slices of lemon cake.

The next morning we head to Ingleton village, a 10-minute drive, to tackle its 4.5-mile waterfall walk.

The sound of rushing water is wonderfully relaxing as we pass no fewer than 11 waterfalls on the circular route, being further rewarded with breathtaking views of Ingleborough, one of the Dales' famous Three Peaks.

We stop to dip tired feet in the natural pool at the bottom of Thornton Force.

Described as a restaurant with rooms by owner Andrew Wildsmith, Hipping Hall's food certainly stands out.

As well as the scallops we tuck into succulent lamb and vegetables from the hotel's walled garden.

This is served in the elegant dining room with its high-vaulted eaves, open fire and wood floor.

We round the meal off with delicious local cheese.

The next morning we stroll the cobbled streets and quaint shops of Kirkby Lonsdale before finding our way to Ruskin's View, a viewpoint on the brow behind St Mary's Church that inspired 19th-century artists JMW Turner and John Ruskin.

Our second bolthole, next to Windermere, is a 30-minute drive away.

Owned by Wildsmith's parents, 26-room Fayrer Garden is larger and more extravagantly decorated than Hipping Hall.

The food in the Terrace Restaurant, overlooking the mature garden with its manicured lawns, is equally striking.

I have twice-baked blue Wensleydale cheese souffl© followed by a suitably moreish sticky toffee pudding.

Fayrer Garden is a 10-minute walk from Bowness-on-Windermere, a bustling town on the water's edge that's a popular departure point for cruises.

With the lake bathed in autumnal sunshine the following morning, we embark on a lazy, 40-minute trip to the southern shore where I fall in love with the cute otters in Lakes Aquarium.

Back in Bowness, we decide to tackle Orrest Head, a peak that inspired William Wordsworth and has one of the finest viewpoints in the Lake District. When Alfred Wainwright first visited in 1930 he got off the bus from Blackburn and made his way straight up without a thought for where he would sleep that night.

Armed with cider and sandwiches, we do something similar, hiking past bracken, oak trees and fairytale-like moss stone walls to a bench where we sit and admire.

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Beyond the lakes and fells we can make out Morecambe Bay and the Pennines. I wonder what messrs Brydon and Coogan would make of it. Stunned into a rare silence perhaps.

GETTING THERE

Virgin Trains (0871 977 4222/ virgintrains.co.uk) offers return rail fares from London Euston to Oxenholme, Cumbria, from £83. Avis (0844 581 0147/avis.com) offers daily car hire from £31 picking up from Kendal.

Hipping Hall (01524 271 187/ hippinghall.com) offers doubles from £120 per night (two sharing), B&B.

Fayrer Garden House Hotel (01539 488 195/ fayrergarden.com) offers doubles from £120 per night (two sharing), B&B.

Cumbria Tourism: 01539 822 222/ cumbriatourism.org