The Yorkshire Dales, which was formed over millions of years by erosion driven by glacier ice, is easily one of the most beautiful places to see in the United Kingdom. Any lover of nature and the beauty of land formations and ecosystems must travel there at least once! One reason so many visitors make many Yorkshire Dales hotels have so few vacancies is that there is no way to truly recognize the power of the Dales without experiencing it. Whether you focus on the amazing caves and scars and wonder at the beautiful and almost magical creations there or if you focus on the crags, the hills, or just the copious amounts of sandstone, limestone, and millhouse grit, you’ll never walk away from experiencing the Dales unchanged in one way or another.

While there, you will have the opportunity to see a truly distinct landscape filled with open moorland, rounded valleys, crags, hills, sandstone, shale, limestone, and millstone grit. Perhaps the geological landmarks created by limestone erosion are the most impressive. Nobody is quite the same after seeing some of the caves and scars available to tourists.

If you visit the Dales, you’ll be amazed at the natural beauty, but you should also note that a great deal of the character of the land is a direct result of man. Certainly, the major land-forms developed millions of years ago, but the major land-forms aren’t what give the Dales its unique flavor. Settlers cleared land to make way for crops, built roads, built fences, and left an indelible mark on the area. As the agriculture in the Dales has historically tended toward livestock, given the difficulty of growing crops there, you?ll notice a great many dairy and mixed-stock farms with sheep, goats, cows, and a land developed to support them. Yorkshire Dales hotels can usually point you in the direction of some of the best landmarks.

While monks built abbeys and farmed giant estates in the middle ages, the Normans built castles and battlements, which still dot the area. The monks first bred sheep tough enough to live in the unforgiving land. Monks also first made cheese, here. It was agriculture that built the fences to keep livestock contained, and agriculture that continued to impact the landscape even more that mining, the other great historical industry of the Dales.

Tourism is a growing and significant portion of the economy now, but that doesn’t mean agriculture is irrelevant today. It is still critical. No matter which of the Yorkshire Dales hotels houses you on your holiday, you can easily get information from the staff on local events and upcoming festivals that celebrate this fact.

When you visit the Yorkshire Dales, be sure to take in what Mother Nature has done, what man has done, and the way that the two factors interact to create a perfect whole experience. The Yorkshire Dales is a lovely area, and when you visit, you will see a remarkable amount of natural beauty. Don?t forget, though, that the Dales also represents an entire landscape impacted and managed by man, and the landmarks and sights point to the rich history of the area from the Romans to the Normans. Recognizing this will surely offer you a greater and deeper appreciation of your time in this wonderful holiday destination.