United Kingdom

Attractions

London

London - the grand resonance of its very name suggests history and might. Its opportunities for entertainment by day and night go on and on and on. It's a city that exhilarates and intimidates, stimulates and irritates in equal measure, a grubby Monopoly board studded with stellar sights.

London is one of the favourite urban haunts of visitors to Europe because of landmark sights like Big Ben, St Paul's Cathedral and the historically rich Westminster Abbey. The city also boasts some of the world's greatest museums and art galleries, and more parkland than most other capitals.

Canterbury Cathedral

The most impressive and evocative, if not the most beautiful, cathedral in England is the seat of the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Primate of All England. Like most cathedrals, it evolved in stages and reflects a number of architectural styles, but the final result is one of the world's great buildings.

The ghosts of saints, soldiers and pilgrims fill the hallowed air, and not even baying packs of French children can completely destroy the atmosphere. After the martyrdom of Archbishop Thomas à Becket in 1170, the cathedral became the centre of one of the most important medieval pilgrimages in Europe, a pilgrimage that was immortalised by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Canterbury Tales. Canterbury itself was severely damaged by bombing in WWII and parts of the town have been insensitively rebuilt, but it still attracts flocks of tourists, just as it has for the past 800 years - though numbers may decrease now pilgrims are charged a fee to enter the cathedral.

Durham

Durham is the most dramatic cathedral city in Britain. It straddles a bluff surrounded on three sides by the River Wear and is dominated by the massive Norman cathedral which sits on a wooded promontory, looking more like a time-worn cliff than a house of worship. The cathedral may not be the most refined in the land, but no other British cathedral has the same impact. The cathedral shares the dramatic top of the bluff with a Norman castle and the University College, while the rest of the picturesque town huddles into the remaining space on the teardrop-shaped promontory.

Lake District

The most green and pleasant corner of a green and pleasant land, the landscapes of the Lake District are almost too perfect for their own good: 10 million visitors can't be wrong, but they can sure cause a few traffic jams.

The area is a combination of luxuriant green dales, modest but precipitous mountains and multitudinous lakes. Be prepared to hike into the hills, or visit on weekdays out of season if you have any desire to emulate the bard and wander lonely as a cloud.

Oxford

Arguably the world's most famous university town, Oxford is graced by superb college architecture and oozes questing youthfulness, and despite its views across the meadows to the city's golden spires appearing in 30% of English period dramas, their beauty never seems to wear thin.

Back in the real world, Oxford is not just the turf of toffs and boffs: it was a major car-manufacturing centre until the terminal decline of the British car industry and is now a thriving centre of service industries. The pick of the colleges are Christ Church, Merton and Magdalen, but nearly all them are drenched in atmosphere, history, privilege and tradition. Don't kid yourself, you wouldn't have studied any harder in such august surroundings.

Stonehenge

It's the most famous site in prehistoric Europe, and is both a tantalising mystery and a hackneyed tourist experience: tantalising because no one knows why the stones were dragged up from South Wales 5000 years ago; hackneyed because tourists are processed through Stonehenge like cans on a conveyor belt.

It consists of a ring of enormous stones topped by lintels, an inner horseshoe, an outer circle and a ditch. Although it is known that the Henge is aligned to the movements of the celestial bodies, little is known about the site's purpose. What leaves most visitors gobsmacked is not the site's religious significance but the tenacity of the people who dragged the stones. It's estimated that it would take 600 people to drag one of these 50-ton monsters more than half an inch. The downside of Stonehenge is that it's fenced off like a dog compound; there are two main roads slicing past the site; entry is via an incongruous underpass; and clashes between New Age hippies and police at summer solstice have become a regular feature of the British calendar. Each year New Age Druids celebrate the summer solstice, but closer access at other times is strictly limited.

The Cotswolds

This limestone escarpment overlooking the Severn Vale is an upland region of stunningly pretty, gilded stone villages and remarkable views. Unfortunately, the soft, mellow stone and the picturesque Agatha Christie charm have resulted in some villages being overrun by coach tourists and commercialism.

York

For nearly 2000 years York has been the capital of the north, and it played a central role in British history under the Romans, Saxons and Vikings. It's a great city in which to amble through the spectacular Gothic cathedral, medieval city walls, tangle of historic streets and glut of pubs.

York is a fascinating city of extraordinary cultural and historical wealth. Its medieval spider's web of narrow streets is enclosed by a magnificent circuit of thirteenth-century walls. The city is thick with museums tracing its long history, and, especially in summer, is a tourist honeypot.