Bath

The Great Bath, the sacred spring and a museum well below street level. Advance adult tickets £29 weekday, £33 weekend and bank holiday; £2 more on the door. Free guided tours leave the Great Bath hourly, 10am to 3pm.

Two hours in the same thermal water, £44 weekdays and £49 weekends, robes and towels included: rooftop pool, Minerva Bath and the wellness suite. Over-16s only, and walk-in slots go early.

Thirty terraced houses in one sweeping curve above a lawn, and a ring of three curved terraces uphill from it. Free to walk. No.1 Royal Crescent is furnished as a Georgian house, £16, Tuesday to Sunday 10.00-17.30, last entry 16.30.

Fan vaulting and the angels climbing the west front. Monday to Friday 10.00-17.30, Saturday to 18.00, Sunday 13.00-16.30, last entry half an hour before. Tower Tours are £18, Monday to Saturday, and under-5s are not allowed up.

One of very few bridges anywhere with shops across its full span, with a horseshoe weir dropping away below it. Best from Grand Parade or the riverside path.

Bath Spa is 80 minutes from Paddington and the station sits in the centre, five minutes' walk from the Abbey. No transfer, no taxi.

Bath runs a Class C Clean Air Zone 24 hours a day and the centre is narrow and steep. Three Park & Ride sites run buses every 15 minutes, about ten minutes into town, until 23.30 Monday to Saturday and 18.00 on Sunday.

Bristol Airport is 19 miles away. Junction 18 of the M4 is ten miles north if you are driving from London.

May, June and September: warm enough for the rooftop pool, and the crescents photograph without a coach in them.

January and February. Hotel rates drop hard and the Roman Baths are genuinely quiet on a weekday morning.

July and August weekends, when Roman Baths tickets cost their most and the centre is shoulder to shoulder.

Roman Baths at opening, with the free hourly tour at 10am, before the day-trippers arrive from Bristol.

Walk up through Queen Square to the Circus and along the Royal Crescent lawn.

Eat somewhere on Walcot Street, which is where Bath keeps its independent shops.

No.1 Royal Crescent, then the Bath Skyline path for the view back down over the whole bowl.

A two-hour spa session at Thermae, finishing on the rooftop pool after dark, then dinner in town.

About an hour east by road. English Heritage sells advance tickets cheaper than on the day, up to 15 per cent less if you book by midnight before; day tickets are valid all day rather than for a slot.

Fifteen minutes by train. Brunel's SS Great Britain, the suspension bridge, the harbourside and a music scene Bath does not have.