Walk among the veteran pollarded hornbeams

Visit Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge, the grandstand built for Henry VIII's hunts in 1543

Find the Iron Age earthwork at Ambresbury Banks

Walk to Connaught Water and look for the fallow deer

Epping Forest runs twelve miles from the edge of London into Essex, saved when public outcry pushed the City of London Corporation to buy it — the first big win of the environmental movement in Europe — and the Corporation owns it still. It holds thousands of veteran pollarded hornbeams and oaks, the Iron Age earthworks of Loughton Camp and Ambresbury Banks, and the Tudor building now called Queen Elizabeth's Hunting Lodge.

Epping Forest: Twelve Miles of Ancient Pollards

Eat a salt beef bagel at Beigel Bake on Brick Lane, open 24 hours a day

Eat pie and mash with liquor at M. Manze on Tower Bridge Road, run by the Manze family since 1902

Have afternoon tea in the Palm Court at the Ritz

Eat a curry in the Bangladeshi restaurants of Brick Lane

Brick Lane's Beigel Bake is open 24 hours for salt beef bagels, and the street's Bangladeshi restaurants serve curry; M. Manze on Tower Bridge Road, run by the Manze family since 1902, serves pie and mash with liquor; and at the other end of the scale there is afternoon tea in the Palm Court at the Ritz.

London's Food: Brick Lane, Pie and Mash and the Ritz

Walk Leake Street, the tunnel under Waterloo station where graffiti is legal, and where Banksy held the Cans Festival in 2008

Look for the big murals around Brick Lane and Shoreditch

Find the David Bowie mural on Tunstall Road in Brixton, painted in 2013

See the bronze statue of Amy Winehouse in Camden's Stables Market

Under Waterloo station, Leake Street is a tunnel where graffiti is legal, and Banksy held the Cans Festival there in 2008. Brick Lane and Shoreditch have the big murals, the David Bowie mural on Tunstall Road in Brixton was painted in 2013, and in Camden Amy Winehouse is remembered with a bronze statue in the Stables Market.

London's Street Art: Leake Street to Shoreditch

Visit Dennis Severs' House at 18 Folgate Street, the Georgian house dressed as a 'still-life drama' of a Huguenot silk-weaving family

Visit the Museum of the Home, formerly the Geffrye Museum, on Kingsland Road

Find the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, unveiled in 1900, in Postman's Park

Tour Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where Hogarth's Rake's Progress hangs

At 18 Folgate Street, Dennis Severs' House is dressed as a still-life drama of a Huguenot silk-weaving family. The Museum of the Home, once the Geffrye Museum, is on Kingsland Road, Postman's Park holds the Watts Memorial to Heroic Self-Sacrifice, opened in 1900, and Sir John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields keeps Hogarth's A Rake's Progress.

London's Hidden Houses: Dennis Severs, Soane and Postman's Park

Visit the Charles Dickens Museum at 48 Doughty Street, his home from 1837 to 1839

Go into the Sir John Ritblat Gallery at the British Library and see the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Lindisfarne Gospels

Visit Dr Johnson's House at 17 Gough Square, where he compiled his Dictionary, published in 1755

Find the Platform 9¾ trolley at King's Cross station

Charles Dickens lived at 48 Doughty Street from 1837 to 1839, and it is now his museum. At 17 Gough Square, Dr Johnson compiled his Dictionary, published in 1755. The British Library's Sir John Ritblat Gallery shows the Magna Carta of 1215 and the Lindisfarne Gospels, and at King's Cross a luggage trolley disappears into the wall at Platform 9¾.

Literary London: Dickens, the British Library and Dr Johnson

Climb the dome of St Paul's Cathedral, Christopher Wren's masterpiece built between 1675 and 1710, to the Whispering Gallery and the outer galleries

Go up The Shard, Renzo Piano's tower of 2012, 310m tall, to The View from The Shard

See the Palace of Westminster and the Elizabeth Tower, the home of Big Ben, designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin after the fire of 1834

Look up at 30 St Mary Axe, Norman Foster's 'Gherkin' of 2004, and Richard Rogers's Lloyd's Building of 1986

Christopher Wren built St Paul's Cathedral between 1675 and 1710, and its dome can be climbed to the Whispering Gallery and beyond. The Palace of Westminster and the Elizabeth Tower, the home of Big Ben, were designed by Charles Barry and Augustus Pugin after the fire of 1834. In the City, Norman Foster's Gherkin of 2004 stands near Richard Rogers's Lloyd's Building of 1986, and across the river Renzo Piano's Shard of 2012 is 310m tall.

London's Landmarks: St Paul's, the Shard and Westminster

Visit Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street, rebuilt soon after the Great Fire and traditionally linked with Dr Johnson

Drink at The Prospect of Whitby in Wapping, which claims the site of London's oldest riverside tavern, near the old Execution Dock

Visit The George Inn in Southwark, the last surviving galleried coaching inn in London, owned by the National Trust

Have a drink at The Mayflower in Rotherhithe, the riverside pub named after the Pilgrim Fathers' ship, and look out at low tide for the spot the pub gives as her 1620 mooring point

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese on Fleet Street was rebuilt soon after the Great Fire of 1666, and tradition makes Dr Johnson, who lived round the corner in Gough Square, one of its regulars. In Wapping, the Prospect of Whitby claims to stand on the site of London's oldest riverside tavern, from around 1520, near the old Execution Dock; in Southwark, the George Inn is the last galleried coaching inn in London, owned by the National Trust; and the Mayflower in Rotherhithe is named after the Pilgrim Fathers' ship, which was based here on the Thames and whose master, Captain Jones, lived and is buried in Rotherhithe.

London's Oldest Pubs

Take a surf lesson or hire a board on Fistral Beach

Watch a surf contest from the North Fistral complex when one is on

Walk out to the headland and look for the Cribbar breaking on a big swell

Watch the surfers from the beach at sunset with fish and chips

Fistral faces west into the Atlantic, which is why it is one of the most consistent surf breaks in Britain; the Newquay Surf Life Saving Club and the Newquay Boardriders are based here, and it hosts international competitions. Westerly and north-westerly groundswells make powerful waves for intermediate and advanced surfers, and when the swell is really big the Cribbar reef at the north end starts to break.

Fistral Beach: Newquay's Atlantic Surf Break

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.