Visit Norwich Cathedral, begun in 1096 by Bishop Herbert de Losinga, with its 96m spire, the second tallest in England, and its cloisters begun in 1297

Explore Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery in the Norman keep

Walk down Elm Hill, the cobbled lane of Tudor houses, rebuilt after a fire in 1507

Walk the Norwich Lanes, the old streets around Elm Hill in the city centre

Bishop Herbert de Losinga began Norwich Cathedral in 1096; its spire, 96m, is the second tallest in England, and its cloisters were begun in 1297. The Norman keep of the castle is now the Castle Museum & Art Gallery, and Elm Hill is a cobbled lane of Tudor houses rebuilt after a fire in 1507, in the middle of the Norwich Lanes.

Norwich: The Cathedral, the Castle and Elm Hill

Hire a day boat or cabin cruiser from Wroxham, the 'capital of the Broads', and cruise Britain's largest protected wetland, whose broads are medieval peat diggings that flooded

Visit the ruins of St Benet's Abbey beside the River Bure, the Benedictine monastery with a windmill built into its gatehouse

Visit Norfolk Wildlife Trust's floating, thatched visitor centre on Ranworth Broad, and climb the tower of St Helen's, the church known as the 'Cathedral of the Broads'

See Horsey Windpump, the National Trust drainage mill by Horsey Mere

The Broads are medieval peat diggings that flooded, and they make up Britain's largest protected wetland. Boats hire out from Wroxham. On the Bure stand the ruins of St Benet's Abbey, with a windmill built into its gatehouse; at Ranworth, Norfolk Wildlife Trust's thatched visitor centre floats on the broad, and St Helen's church, known as the Cathedral of the Broads, has a tower you can climb; and near the coast the National Trust's Horsey Windpump stands by Horsey Mere.

The Norfolk Broads: Wroxham, St Benet's and Horsey

Walk along the mere from Diss Park and out over the water on the boardwalk

Walk the timber-framed streets up to St Mary's church

Walk a stretch of the Waveney valley below the town

Diss is built round a six-acre mere whose origin nobody knows for sure, perhaps a glacial hollow, perhaps a sunken pocket in the chalk; the town slopes down to it in timber and Georgian brick, and John Betjeman made a short film about it, Something about Diss, in 1964. The Waveney runs along the valley below towards the Broads.

Diss and the Waveney Valley

Walk to the end of Cromer Pier and see the Pavilion Theatre

See the 158ft tower of St Peter and St Paul, the tallest church tower in Norfolk

Cromer's pier of 1901 carries the Pavilion Theatre, which still runs a summer variety show at the end of it, and the town's crab boats are launched off the beach. The church of St Peter and St Paul stands in the middle of the town, and somewhere off the end of the pier lie the remains of Shipden, the village the sea took — a pleasure steamer struck its church tower in 1888 and the rock was blown up for safety.

Cromer: The End-of-Pier Theatre and the Crab Boats

Mountain bike the trails at High Lodge in Thetford Forest, the largest lowland pine forest in Britain

Climb the treetops on the Go Ape course at High Lodge

Climb 9 metres down a shaft at Grime's Graves, the Neolithic flint mines dug from about 2600 BC, when the site is open

Find the statue of Captain Mainwaring in Thetford, where most of Dad's Army's outdoor scenes were filmed

Thetford Forest is the largest lowland pine forest in Britain, with mountain-bike trails and a Go Ape course at High Lodge. At Grime's Graves, Neolithic miners dug for flint from about 2600 BC, and you can climb 9 metres down a shaft when the site is open. In Thetford, where most of Dad's Army's outdoor scenes were filmed, Captain Mainwaring has his own statue.

Thetford Forest and Grime's Graves

Play the handmade machines in the Under the Pier Show

Walk the front past the painted beach huts

Look up at the lighthouse standing in the middle of the town

Take the rowing-boat ferry across the Blyth to Walberswick in summer, or cross by the Bailey Bridge upstream

Southwold sits between the sea and the mouth of the Blyth, with a white lighthouse standing among the houses, rows of painted beach huts along the front, and a pier that holds the Under the Pier Show, a hall of handmade, gently satirical arcade machines built by Tim Hunkin. Adnams has brewed here since the 19th century and is still the town's largest employer.

Southwold: The Pier, the Lighthouse and the Beach Huts

Take a boat trip from Morston Quay to see the seal colony on Blakeney Point

Walk out along the shingle spit from Cley

Look for samphire and specialised shingle plants on the ridge

Watch terns and waders over the marshes behind the spit

Come between November and January to see the grey seal pups from a seal trip boat from Morston

Blakeney Point is a shingle spit on the north Norfolk coast, a national nature reserve managed by the National Trust since 1912. Harbour and grey seals haul out at the end of the spit, and the grey seals, which started breeding here regularly in 2001, have their pups on the beach between November and January. Boats run from Morston Quay to see the seals, and the marshes behind the spit are a major site for migrating birds in autumn.

Blakeney Point: The Seal Colony on the Shingle Spit

Stand in front of Flatford Mill, where Constable painted The Hay Wain, and find Willy Lott's Cottage across the water

Work out which bank is Suffolk and which is Essex — the Stour is the county line

Visit Bridge Cottage beside the mill, owned by the National Trust with the mill and Willy Lott's Cottage

Walk up to East Bergholt, where Constable was born, and find the wooden bell cage of 1531 in St Mary's churchyard

Flatford Mill on the Stour, in Dedham Vale on the Suffolk–Essex border, was owned by John Constable's father, and the mill and its surroundings are the setting of many of his paintings. Its date-stone says 1733; the National Trust owns it, with Bridge Cottage, Valley Farm and Willy Lott's Cottage, and the Field Studies Council has run it as a field centre since 1943. The Hay Wain, finished in 1821 and now in the National Gallery, was painted from the front of the mill, with Willy Lott's Cottage on the far left — and because the river is the county boundary, the left bank in the picture is Suffolk and the right is Essex. Constable was born up the hill in East Bergholt, whose church has never had a tower: work on one stopped when Cardinal Wolsey fell in 1530, and the next year a wooden bell cage was put up in the churchyard as a temporary home for the bells. It is still there, and the bells in it are rung by turning the headstocks by hand rather than with ropes.