Carlisle has been a border city for two thousand years, and the Romans were the first to make it one. On the eastern edge, around Tarraby, the line of Hadrian's Wall passes beneath modern housing, and for much of its length here there is nothing to see above ground except the occasional dip in a field or a bend in a lane that follows the old ditch. The great fort of Uxelodunum, now buried beneath Stanwix, was the largest on the whole wall, home to a thousand cavalrymen, which tells you how much weight the Romans put on this crossing of the river Eden.
Carlisle's later history is just as bloody. The castle, a red sandstone fortress, held Mary Queen of Scots for a time, and the city was fought over by Scots and English for centuries, and again in the Jacobite rising of 1745. The cathedral, one of the smallest in England, has a fine painted ceiling of stars, and the Tullie House museum tells the Roman and border stories well. The railway arrived in Victorian times, and the Settle to Carlisle line, one of the great scenic routes of Britain, ends in the station here.
For a rider, Carlisle is a gateway rather than a destination. From here you can go west along the Solway, east along the wall country toward Brampton and Haltwhistle, or south into the Eden valley and the Pennines. The city has a ring road that works well, but town traffic is heavy at peak times and the A69 east is busy with lorries heading for the Tyne. Quiet roads south-east of town climb into the north Pennines, with long views and clean curves.
With nearly eighty thousand people, Carlisle has plenty of fuel and food, and the old centre has the usual range of pubs and cafes. Allow time to walk the walls of the castle and find a local cumberland sausage. The wall path, a national trail, is within reach, and wet weather brings the fells into sharp, damp focus.