Stand at Free Derry Corner, the gable wall left standing after the house was demolished

Walk the Bogside murals in sequence and follow what they depict

Look down on the Bogside from the city walls above and see how the ground lies

On 5 January 1969 community activists barricaded the Bogside and Creggan after the RUC came into the area, and somebody painted on a gable wall: You are now entering Free Derry. The barricades came down after six days, went back up, and the area stood outside British control until 1972. The gable end still stands on its own in the middle of the road, the house behind it long gone. The murals painted around it by the Bogside Artists tell the events of those years, including Bloody Sunday.

Free Derry: The Gable Wall and the Bogside Murals

Walk the complete circuit of the walls, the only intact city walls in Ireland

Find the gates the thirteen apprentice boys shut in December 1688

See the cannon mounted on the ramparts, including Roaring Meg

Look down from the walls into the Bogside and read the murals from above

On 7 December 1688 thirteen apprentice boys ran ahead of the city's own leaders and shut the gates in the face of a Jacobite regiment — an act of open rebellion against James II. The following April the king himself appeared before these walls with an Irish army, and the siege that followed became the first major event of the Williamite War. The walls held. They were built by the Irish Society between 1613 and 1619 under the London builder Peter Benson, and they are the only complete circuit of city walls left in Ireland — you can walk the whole way round on top of them.

The Walls of Derry: Thirteen Apprentices and 105 Days

Walk the gorge path where the Roe is forced through the narrows at the visitor centre

Find the disused hydroelectric station, the first in Northern Ireland, built in 1896

Find the flax drying fields and the watch towers built to stop linen being stolen

Go through the Green Lane Museum on the linen industry and rural life

The Roe runs south-west of Limavady through three miles of steep-sided gorge and riparian woodland, and the whole valley is a record of industry using water. The 18th-century linen industry worked this site — flax drying fields with watch towers to stop the linen being stolen, derelict buildings, and a waterwheel that drove the machinery. Beside it stands a disused hydroelectric generating station, the first to operate in Northern Ireland, from 1896.

Roe Valley: The First Hydroelectric Station in the North

Climb Sawel from the Glenelly Road, following the fences over the bog

Walk the ridge from Sawel to Dart, the second-highest summit in the Sperrins

On a clear day, pick out the Foyle estuary, Lough Neagh and the Mournes from the top

Drive the Glenelly valley under the mountain

Sawel, at 678 metres, is the highest of the Sperrin Mountains and the highest mountain in Northern Ireland outside the Mournes; its summit is on the county boundary, with Londonderry to the north and Tyrone to the south. Dart, at 619 metres the second highest in the range, is along the ridge to the west. The Sperrins are an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, mostly moorland and blanket bog under rounded summits, and the usual loop goes up from the Glenelly Road, following wire fences that make a navigation line in any weather. On a clear day you can see north to the Foyle estuary and east across Northern Ireland to Lough Neagh and the Mournes. Golden eagles from the reintroduced Donegal population have been seen across the range.

Sawel and Dart: The Top of the Sperrins

Find the O'Cahan tomb inside the priory ruins

Look at the carved figures in the arcade beneath the effigy

Find the bullaun stone under the rag-hung thorn bushes outside

Look at how the 1100s priory sits on the foundations of older churches

The Augustinian priory at Dungiven was built in the 1100s on the foundations of earlier churches, and inside its ruins is the O'Cahan tomb, long said to be that of Cooey na Gall O'Cahan, who died in 1385 — though the effigy itself looks to be late 15th-century work, and may be a later man of the same family — one of the finest medieval tombs in Ireland, with the effigy above and a row of armed figures carved in the arcade beneath. Outside in the graveyard a thicket of thorn bushes is hung with rags: a bullaun stone sits under them, and people still come to it seeking cures for warts.

Dungiven Priory: The O'Cahan Tomb and the Rag Tree

Cycle the Gap of Mamore, a hairpin mountain road rising to about 250m between Buncrana and Clonmany on the Urris Hills

Find the Marian shrine and St Eigne's Holy Well just below the crest, where the turas is walked from 15 August to 8 September

Ride the out-and-back from Buncrana, about 28km, or the longer loop round by Clonmany

Descend the switchback bends carefully — the road is single-track in places with no barrier

The Gap of Mamore is a single-track road that switchbacks up to about 250m between Buncrana and Clonmany, cut through the Urris Hills on the Inishowen peninsula, and it is one of the steepest climbs in Donegal. Just below the crest are a Marian shrine and St Eigne's Holy Well, where a turas is traditionally walked between 15 August and 8 September. The out-and-back from Buncrana is about 28km, and the descent has no barrier on the drop side.

The Gap of Mamore: Donegal's Hairpin Climb

Drive or walk up to the Binevenagh cliff top and look out over the Magilligan peninsula

Look across Lough Foyle into Donegal from the escarpment

Walk a stretch of Benone Strand below the cliffs

Find the basalt columns in the escarpment face, the same rock as the Causeway

Binevenagh is the north-western end of the Antrim basalt — a great escarpment of cliff standing over the Magilligan peninsula and dominating the skyline above Bellarena, Downhill, Castlerock and Benone. It is both an Area of Special Scientific Interest and the centre of a 138 square kilometre AONB. From the top you look across Lough Foyle into Donegal and out along one of the longest beaches in Ireland.

Binevenagh: The Basalt Escarpment Over Magilligan

Walk the woodland trails down to the shore of Upper Lough Erne

Walk the old parkland trees of the demesne above the shore

Take a boat out among the islands and reedbeds of the upper lough

Look at riparian woodland growing straight into the water and work out why so little of it is left

Crom is 1,350 acres of nature reserve along the shores of Upper Lough Erne, mostly riparian forest — woodland growing right down into the water, which is a habitat that has almost vanished from Ireland. The National Trust runs it as one of three Fermanagh estates alongside Florence Court and Castle Coole. It is quiet in a way that few places are: islands, reedbed, old parkland trees, and water on every side.