United Kingdom

The Georgian spa city: Roman water, honey-stone crescents, and a green skyline you can walk in an afternoon

London-by-the-Sea: a Regency palace, two piers and a shingle beach, an hour from the city and a world away from it

Harbourside, the gorge and Banksy's home ground: a working port city reinvented in colour

Colleges, the Backs and flat water: a compact fen-edge university city built for walking and punting

The cathedral city that pilgrims have been walking to since the twelfth century

The Welsh capital where a 2,000-year-old castle sits in the middle of the shopping streets, and the national stadium sits in the middle of everything

The walled city on the Dee: two-tier medieval Rows, a complete Roman and medieval circuit you can walk in an afternoon, and the oldest racecourse still racing

A walled town people still live in: Edward I's castle, a complete circuit of medieval walls, and three river crossings in a row

Scotland's capital: a castle on a volcanic crag, a mountain inside the city, and the world's biggest arts festival every August

Scotland's biggest city: Victorian mercantile grandeur, Mackintosh architecture, and the best live music scene in the country

The Mersey waterfront, the Beatles, two cathedrals and two football clubs: a proud maritime city that built the modern world's music and never stopped arguing about it

Turner's sunsets, a shell grotto nobody can date and a town that never pretended to be pretty

A working East Lothian seaside town half an hour from Edinburgh, with the Bass Rock offshore and a volcanic hill behind the High Street

The university city that is also a real one: honey-stone colleges, a working covered market, and rivers on three sides

The medieval hilltop Cinque Port that the sea left behind, cobbled Mermaid Street and all

A working lighthouse in the middle of the town, six guns on the cliff, and a boat rowed across the river by hand

Scotland's home of golf, a ruined medieval cathedral, and a university town on the North Sea

The Cornish harbour town that turned its light into an art movement, turquoise beaches and all

The pastel-painted walled harbour town on Carmarthen Bay, three beaches and a monastery island on the doorstep

A working harbour split by the Esk: the abbey on one cliff, the fish quay on the other, and 199 steps in between

The Kent oyster town: a working harbour, weatherboard beach huts, and the best seafood shacks on this coast

The Castle town on the Thames, half an hour from London and worth more than the half-day most people give it

Two thousand years deep: Roman walls, Viking streets, the great Minster, and England's chocolate city