Walk the path round the Lovell Telescope and watch it move if it's observing

Go round the First Light Pavilion and the story of 1957

Walk the arboretum with its scale model of the Solar System, and the Galaxy Maze

Bernard Lovell set up Jodrell Bank in 1945 to study cosmic rays with war-surplus radar equipment, and by 1957 had built the 76m dish now named after him — still the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world, and in October 1957 the only telescope able to track Sputnik's booster rocket by radar. The observatory became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2019.

Jodrell Bank: The Lovell Telescope

Buxton and Jodrell Bank

Liverpool

Five nights in a loop from Liverpool through the Peak District: the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell Bank, the caves and Blue John of Castleton, Chatsworth, and Thor's Cave above the Manifold.

The Peak District from Liverpool

Drive or ride the A537 from Macclesfield over to Buxton

Stop at the Cat and Fiddle at the summit, the old inn that became a distillery

Walk out onto Axe Edge Moor from the pass

The Cat and Fiddle road between Macclesfield and Buxton takes its name from the inn at its summit, about 515m up on Goyt's Moss; the pub closed in 2015 and reopened as a distillery, shop and bar in 2020. Made up of parts of the A537, A54 and A53, it is famous for its bends and its views over the Peak District and the Cheshire Plain, hugely popular with motorcyclists, and often called the most dangerous road in the United Kingdom.

The Cat and Fiddle: The Old Road Over the Moor to Buxton

Climb Old Pale, the high point of the northern Mid Cheshire Ridge, for the view out over the Cheshire plain

Walk round Blakemere Moss, the kilometre-long lake in the middle of the forest

Find Black Lake, a quaking bog floating on the water, and look for the white-faced darter in summer

Find out what forest law meant here, and why little changed until the Crown took the forest in 1812

Delamere — 'forest of the lakes' — is what is left of the great Forests of Mara and Mondrem that once covered this part of Cheshire, held under forest law for centuries until the Crown took ownership in 1812 and the old ordinances were abolished; the Forestry Commission took it over in 1924. At 972 hectares it is the largest woodland in the county, with about 750,000 visitors a year. Old Pale is the high point of the northern end of the Mid Cheshire Ridge; Blakemere Moss is a lake about a kilometre long in the middle of the trees; and Black Lake is a rare quaking bog, a schwingmoor, protected as a Site of Special Scientific Interest and part of a Ramsar site, where the white-faced darter, a dragonfly rare in Britain, is found.

Delamere Forest: Old Pale Heights and Blakemere Moss

Go through the National Football Museum in the city centre

In the season, August to May, get to a match at one of the two grounds

In Manchester you can see both big clubs' grounds and the national football museum in a single day: Old Trafford on one side of the centre, the Etihad on the other, and the National Football Museum in the middle of town with the game's own collection. Both grounds run stadium tours on non-matchdays, and the Old Trafford tour goes into the players' dressing room and down the tunnel.

Manchester Football: Old Trafford, the Etihad and the National Museum

Tour Gladstone Pottery Museum in Longton, the museum of a coal-fired pottery works with its bottle kilns

See Middleport Pottery in Burslem, the working Victorian pottery of 1888

Visit the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley, with its Spitfire and pieces of the Staffordshire Hoard

Stoke-on-Trent is the Potteries, England's ceramic heartland. At Longton, the Gladstone Pottery Museum keeps a coal-fired pottery works with its bottle kilns; at Burslem, Middleport Pottery of 1888 still makes pots; the World of Wedgwood is at Barlaston; and the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Hanley holds a Spitfire and pieces of the Staffordshire Hoard.

The Potteries: Wedgwood, Gladstone and Middleport

See Buxton Crescent, the Georgian crescent built in the 1780s by John Carr for the 5th Duke of Devonshire, and taste the spring water at St Ann's Well

Visit Buxton Opera House, the Frank Matcham theatre of 1903

Buxton's spring rises at a steady 28°C, and by 1460 it had been declared holy and dedicated to St Anne. The water is piped to St Ann's Well at the foot of the Slopes, opposite the Crescent that John Carr built in the 1780s for the 5th Duke of Devonshire. Frank Matcham's Opera House of 1903 reopened in 1979 with the first Buxton Festival, the Pavilion Gardens lie beside it, and on the edge of town Poole's Cavern is a limestone cave.

Buxton: The Crescent, the Opera House and the Warm Spring

Visit the Science and Industry Museum in Liverpool Road station of 1830, the world's oldest surviving railway terminus

Visit the People's History Museum, the national museum of democracy

See the Barton Swing Aqueduct, opened in 1894, the world's only swing aqueduct, whose 1,450-tonne trough carries the Bridgewater Canal across the Manchester Ship Canal

Walk Salford Quays to the Imperial War Museum North

Manchester's Science and Industry Museum stands on Liverpool Road station, opened in 1830 and the oldest surviving railway terminus in the world. The People's History Museum is the national museum of democracy. West of the city, the Barton Swing Aqueduct of 1894 is the only swing aqueduct in the world: its 1,450-tonne trough carries the Bridgewater Canal across the Manchester Ship Canal and swings aside to let ships through.

Manchester: The First Station and the Barton Swing Aqueduct

Walk the coast path from Craster to Dunstanburgh Castle

Walk round the curtain wall and the twin-towered gatehouse

Buy kippers at Robson's smokehouse in Craster

In spring and summer, look for the kittiwakes nesting on the Gull Crag cliffs below the castle

Dunstanburgh is the largest castle in Northumberland by area and can only be reached on foot, a mile and a quarter along the coast from Craster, where Robson's smokehouse has been curing herring over oak smoke since 1856. The path runs under the crag with the ruined gatehouse towers ahead of you the whole way.

Craster and Dunstanburgh: Kippers and the Biggest Castle in Northumberland

Find your way through the tunnels and grottoes without a map

Tick off the checklist of oddities you are given at the entrance

In Coverdale, the Forbidden Corner is a folly garden built in the 1980s as a private pleasure garden and opened to the public in 1997: a maze of tunnels, grottoes, false doors and sculptures that the Folly Fellowship voted the best European folly of the 20th century. It is laid out as a maze, and visitors are given a checklist of oddities to hunt down.