United Kingdom

A Cardigan Bay university town: a Victorian prom from castle to Constitution Hill, a cliff railway, and steam up the Rheidol valley

The Percys' castle above the Aln, a poison garden behind black gates, and a bookshop in the old station

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

A village where the Llugwy meets the Conwy: Telford's iron bridge, a 14th-century church by the station, and the waterfalls of Eryri up the A5

A shallow river under low stone bridges, a model of the village in the pub garden, and football played in the Windrush

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

A castle at the foot of the square, walls you walk round, a Roman fort up the road and steam from the quay, on the Menai Strait

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

Three ferries to Kingswear, a castle at the river mouth, and crab sandwiches on the Embankment

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

Lochaber's town under Ben Nevis: the Mountain Track, the Jacobite to Mallaig and the end of the West Highland Way

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

The book town on the Wye: second-hand shops on Lion Street, a restored castle above the Clock Tower, and Hay Bluff at the top of the Offa's Dyke Path

The Highland capital on the River Ness: a reopened castle, the Culloden battlefield and the boats to Loch Ness

Launches on Derwentwater, a stone circle on the hill, and fells that start at the end of the street

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

A Dee valley town at the head of a World Heritage canal: horse-drawn boats from the wharf, heritage trains up the valley to Corwen, and Castell Dinas Brân on the hill above

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

Swansea's seaside end: a castle over the village, a Victorian pier, ice cream on the prom and a coast path round the headland

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

Two hobby horses on May Day, a railway line you can now cycle, and a ferry across the Camel estuary

Highland Perthshire's Victorian resort on the Tummel: a dam with a salmon ladder, a theatre across the river and a working distillery

Skye's main town: a harbour of painted houses, and the bus stand for the Storr and the Trotternish loop

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

A castle on a crag above the Forth, a walled Old Town under it, and the ground of two battles within sight of the walls

Shakespeare's town on the Avon: a theatre on the riverbank, a Mop Fair in the streets, and a working market town under all of it

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