- LONDON
There can be few more cosmopolitan cities on earth. People pour in from across the world to visit, work or live within London’s ever-changing environs. Londoners are used to hoardings marking the progress of colossal infrastructure projects such as Cross rail and the revitalization of King’s Cross-St Pancras, and new skyscrapers, even entire new areas, such as the Embassy Quarter and Battersea Power Station south of the river, are transforming the skyline, bringing a certain energy to this thriving metropolis.
There can be few more cosmopolitan cities on earth. People pour in from across the world to visit, work or live within London’s ever-changing environs. Londoners are used to hoardings marking the progress of colossal infrastructure projects such as Cross rail and the revitalization of King’s Cross-St Pancras, and new skyscrapers, even entire new areas, such as the Embassy Quarter and Battersea Power Station south of the river, are transforming the skyline, bringing a certain energy to this thriving metropolis.
BRIGHTON
You need never get bored in this lovably eccentric city. There’s always something unexpected to enjoy in Brighton – be it a sea-facing yoga class, watching a skateboarding Jack Russell, or browsing through a surprisingly good beachfront hippy market. The secret is to roam freely and keep your eyes peeled. Sure, Brighton has acquired certain London sophistication in recent years, but sheeny glamour never wins out here.
SUFFOLK
The beaches fringing the curved Norfolk and Suffolk coastline are the chief draw for visitors to the region. Even on the busiest summer’s day, there is always space for games, kite flying or a quiet family picnic in the dunes. It’s also a wild landscape of dense pine forest, open heathland and great expanses of salt marsh. Bird life is astonishingly rich, and coastal wild flowers include yellow-horned poppies and purple-flowering sea pea, while the unique wetlands of the Broads is home to more than 400 rare species, including butterflies, dragonflies, moths and snails.
DEVON
Craggy coves and cream teas, surf breaks and strolls, picnics and pints in pub gardens – holidays in Devon are wholesome, simple and scenic. A visit here mixes two of life’s loveliest pleasures: good food and the great outdoors. Most people are drawn to the magnificent beaches on the south and north coasts, but inland Devon has its appeal, too: Dartmoor and Exmoor are vast granite plateaux offering solitude and big skies, while the gentler, Friesian-filled pastures of mid-Devon hide clusters of thatched villages, meandering rivers and thickly wooded cleaves.
COTSWOLDS
The glorious, honey-colored towns and villages of the Cotswold’s look as if they have strayed into the 21st century from another era. The area is characterized by gentle dynamism, with lively galleries, vibrant festivals and a liberal endowment of intriguing museums. Covering nearly 800 square miles across five counties (Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Oxford shire, Warwickshire and Worcestershire), this region of ‘wolds’, or rolling hills, is the biggest of the 38 Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in England and Wales.
