Walk the boardwalk out over the undrained fen

Look for the Konik ponies and Highland cattle grazing the reserve

See the wooden windpump, built in 1908 to drain peat workings and now run in reverse to keep the reedbeds wet

Watch hen harriers or marsh harriers from the hides

Wicken Fen is one of Britain's oldest nature reserves and the first piece of land the National Trust took on for nature, starting in 1899 — a surviving fragment of undrained fen in a landscape that was otherwise pumped dry centuries ago. Konik ponies and Highland cattle graze it now, and the boardwalk runs out over sedge and open water.

Wicken Fen: The National Trust's First Reserve

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.

Ely: The Octagon and Cromwell's House

Take a punting tour on the River Cam along the Backs, passing Queens' College's Mathematical Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs of St John's College

Visit King's College Chapel, begun in 1446 by Henry VI and completed in 1515, with its fan vault and Rubens's Adoration of the Magi

Explore the Fitzwilliam Museum, founded in 1816 on Viscount Fitzwilliam's bequest

See the Corpus Clock on the corner of Corpus Christi College, where the Chronophage eats the seconds on its gold face

Henry VI began King's College Chapel in 1446 and it was finished in 1515, with its fan vault and Rubens's Adoration of the Magi. Punts go along the Backs past Queens' College's Mathematical Bridge and the Bridge of Sighs at St John's, the Fitzwilliam Museum was founded in 1816 on Viscount Fitzwilliam's bequest, and on the corner of Corpus Christi the Chronophage, a mechanical grasshopper, eats time on the gold face of the Corpus Clock.

Cambridge: King's College Chapel and the Backs

Watch whooper and Bewick's swans on the floodlit lagoon at WWT Welney Wetland Centre in winter

Come for a floodlit swan feed on a winter Saturday evening

Every winter thousands of whooper swans from Iceland and a few hundred Bewick's swans fly in to the Ouse Washes at WWT Welney. From November to March they are fed in front of the hides, and on Saturday evenings from mid-November to February the lagoon is floodlit for an evening swan feed.

WWT Welney: Wild Swans Under the Floodlights

Go inside the reconstructed timber halls and sunken huts

See the finds from the original excavation in the museum

Walk the Breckland heath and the Lark in the country park

A real Anglo-Saxon settlement stood at West Stow from the 5th to the 7th century, and it was excavated and then rebuilt on the same ground: timber halls and sunken huts put up as an experiment, using only the tools and techniques the Anglo-Saxons had, to learn how they were built. The country park around it runs along the Lark through Breckland heath.

West Stow: The Anglo-Saxon Village Rebuilt on Its Own Site

Visit St Edmundsbury Cathedral, the Gothic cathedral with its Millennium Tower completed in 2005

Walk the ruins of Bury St Edmunds Abbey in the Abbey Gardens, where the barons are believed to have sworn their oath in 1214

Tour the Greene King Brewery, founded in Bury in 1799

Have a drink in the Nutshell on the Traverse, one of several pubs that claim to be Britain's smallest

In the Abbey Gardens at Bury St Edmunds stand the ruins of the abbey where, by tradition, the barons swore in 1214 to force King John to accept the Charter of Liberties, which influenced Magna Carta. St Edmundsbury Cathedral's Millennium Tower was only completed in 2005. Greene King has brewed in the town since 1799, and the Nutshell on the Traverse is one of several pubs that claim to be Britain's smallest.

Bury St Edmunds: The Abbey Gardens and the Nutshell

Visit the Cromwell Museum in his old grammar school

Walk the riverside and the medieval bridge over the Ouse

Watch for wildfowl from the hides at Grafham's nature reserve

Oliver Cromwell was born in Huntingdon in 1599 and sat for the town in Parliament from 1628; the Cromwell Museum occupies part of the medieval infirmary hall that became the grammar school he and Samuel Pepys attended. About five miles south-west, Grafham Water covers about 630 hectares with a traffic-free circuit round it for bikes and a nature reserve at the western end.

Huntingdon and Grafham Water: Cromwell's Town and a Reservoir Ride

Walk the rooms left unrestored, including the shut-up chambers

Find the cases of stuffed birds among the rooms left almost as they were found

The Harpur family held Calke for more than 350 years and let it fill up: rooms shut and never reopened, cases of stuffed birds, the clutter of generations. When it passed to the National Trust in 1985 in lieu of inheritance tax, the Trust repaired it but chose not to restore it, and many rooms are shown almost as they were found, peeling paint and all.

Calke Abbey: The House Left As It Was Found

Walk the abbey church the monks built themselves

See Dom Charles Norris's 1968 slab-glass window in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel

Walk the lavender, sensory and physic gardens

Book a honeybee experience day or a beekeeping course at the abbey apiary, where Brother Adam bred his bees

Benedictines returned to the ruined site at Buckfast in 1882 and rebuilt the abbey church between 1907 and 1938 on the medieval foundations, mostly with their own hands — four monks at a time, one of them a trained mason, working with a horse and a winch. The community still makes tonic wine and keeps bees, and Brother Adam's bee breeding here was known worldwide.