Would you spend £600+ for a week in a 2 b.r. cottage in The Lake District, or...

[LittenTree]

..do you think that's rather a lot of money??!

We went to Suffolk, same week last year, being the last week of the school summer hols and took a lovely, 3 bedroomed, 'authentic' cottage in the countryside for £400 odd.

Many of the 'cottages' I'm looking at (2 bedroom as we are one less this year) appear to emanate from the 'Birmingham council house' vernacular, as well- and they're £600-650!

Am I missing something?!

It's the going rate these days. We paid about £700 for a week in a cottage near Padstow in August 2009. Although I have to say it was worth every penny and was the best equipped cottage we have ever stayed in.

Scotland is your answer. Back end of August their schools have gone back so prices come down. For under £600 we stayed in a 2 bed light keepers cottage last August and prev Aug a 2 bed cottage almost in the loch that used to house the ferry to Skye - plenty of hills to hike up there.

no no no. not house the ferry itself - the ferry waiting room.

We stayed here www.lakedistrictholidayhome.com which is just near cartmel and was lovely. It was big though, which was great for us as we had the little ones with us.

National parks are generally expensive - partly becuase of planning restrictions pushing costs up, etc. House prices are typically high (compared to average local wages, they're very high) and you're so restircted as to what developments/improvements you can make that renting any property, including holiday cottage will be way more expensive than in areas without National Park planning conditions.
As an aside NortherLurker cottages looked lovely - but the first was close to Loch Katrine, not Loch Lomond. LL is typically more expensive than that, at least in school hols.