Visit Sutton Hoo, the Anglo-Saxon burial ground where Basil Brown uncovered the ship burial in 1939

Walk out to the burial mounds above the River Deben

See the reconstruction of the burial chamber and the replica finds in the exhibition hall

Walk the estuary path along the Deben below the mounds

Under a mound above the Deben, Basil Brown found the print of a 27m ship in the sand in 1939, with a burial chamber most likely made for an East Anglian king, probably Rædwald — helmet, shoulder clasps, gold buckle, silver from Byzantium — one of the most significant archaeological finds ever made in England. The ship itself had rotted away, leaving only its shape and its rivets.

Sutton Hoo: The Ship Burial Under the Mounds

Look up at the House in the Clouds from the Meare

Row on the Meare, the shallow boating lake dug in 1913

See Thorpeness windmill that pumped the water up

Thorpeness was built as a mock-Tudor holiday village, and in 1923 its water tower was dressed up as a weatherboarded house so it would fit in — a 50,000-gallon tank hidden behind windows and gables, apparently floating above the trees. Anti-aircraft fire hit it by accident in the Second World War, and when mains water arrived in 1977 the tower became redundant; in 1979 the tank was taken out to make more rooms.

The House in the Clouds: A Water Tower in Disguise

Watch avocets at RSPB Minsmere, where the species returned to breed in Britain in 1947

Walk Aldeburgh's shingle beach to Maggi Hambling's steel Scallop sculpture, made in 2003 as a tribute to Benjamin Britten

Take the ferry from Orford Quay to Orford Ness National Nature Reserve, the shingle spit that was a secret military test site until the 1970s, and see its pagodas

Climb Orford Castle, the Henry II keep built in 1165–1173

Avocets returned to breed in Britain in 1947 at Minsmere, now the RSPB's reserve. On Aldeburgh's shingle beach stands Maggi Hambling's steel Scallop of 2003, a tribute to Benjamin Britten. At Orford, Henry II's keep was built in 1165–73, and a ferry crosses from the quay to Orford Ness, a shingle spit that was a secret military test site until the 1970s, with its pagodas still standing.

The Suffolk Coast: Minsmere, Aldeburgh and Orford Ness

Walk Dedham, the village in Dedham Vale National Landscape, and see St Mary's church, whose tower appears in Constable's paintings

Visit the Munnings Art Museum at Castle House in Dedham, the home of the painter Sir Alfred Munnings

Walk a section of the Stour Valley Path, the 60-mile route through the valley

Dedham is the village at the heart of Dedham Vale, and the tower of its church, St Mary's, appears in John Constable's paintings. The painter Sir Alfred Munnings lived at Castle House, now the Munnings Art Museum. The Stour Valley Path runs 60 miles through the valley.

Dedham: Constable's Church and the Munnings Museum

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.

Constable Country: Flatford Mill and The Hay Wain

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

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

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

Visit Ely Cathedral, begun in 1083, and see the Octagon and its timber lantern, built after the central tower fell in 1322

Tour Oliver Cromwell's House in Ely, where he lived from 1636 to 1647

Walk Ely's riverside along the Great Ouse

Ely Cathedral, begun in 1083, is the Ship of the Fens, and its Octagon, built after the Norman central tower collapsed in 1322 and topped by a timber lantern, lights the crossing. Oliver Cromwell lived in the town from 1636 to 1647, and his house is open; the Great Ouse runs along the town's riverside.