More properly called Bowness-on-Windermere, this is a town developed as a tourist centre in Victorian times when it became the nearest railway stop to Lake Windermere itself. It is a sprawling and not wildly attractive town but it provides a Steamboat Museum, a quay for boat trips on the lake and one terminal for the only car ferry across a lake in the National Park area.

http://www.visitcumbria.com/amb/winsteam.htm