3 Best Sights in Haworth: Heart of Bronte Country, Yorkshire

If you have the time, pack a lunch and walk for 2¾ miles or so from Haworth along the "Bronte trail" across the moors to the lovely, isolated waterfall that has been renamed in honor of the sisters. It was one of their favorite haunts, which they wrote about in poems and letters, with Charlotte calling it "a perfect torrent racing over the rocks, white and beautiful!” in an 1854 diary entry.

Haworth's steep, cobbled High Street has changed little in outward appearance since the early 19th century, but it now acts as a funnel for crowds heading for points of interest: the Black Bull pub, where the reprobate Branwell Brontë drank himself into an early grave (his stool is kept in mint condition); the former post office (now a bookshop) from which Charlotte, Emily, and Anne sent their manuscripts to their London publishers; and the church, with its atmospheric graveyard (Charlotte and Emily are buried in the family vault inside the church; Anne is buried in Scarborough).

A foreboding ruined mansion perched on a bleak hilltop 4 miles from Haworth, Top Withens is often assumed to be the inspiration for the fictional Wuthering Heights. Brontë scholars say it probably isn't; even in its heyday, the house never fit the book's description of Heathcliff's domain (a more likely candidate was a grander manor near Halifax). Getting here and back from Haworth involves an inspirational, 3½-hour walk across the moors along a well-marked footpath that passes the Brontë Waterfall. If you've read Wuthering Heights, you don't need to be reminded to wear sturdy shoes and protective clothing.